Pollyooly looked at him very sternly, and said in a very stern voice:
"Her mother was a very respectable woman; she was in the second row of the Varolium ballet for years and years; and she always kept Millie very respectable. Besides, you can't let people go to the workhouse."
"Why can't you, if it's the proper place for them?" said the duke stubbornly, for he hated to hear the workhouse in any way disparaged, since he regarded it as a bulwark of society.
"How would you like your little girl to go to the workhouse?" said Pollyooly in a deeply reproachful tone.
"It's a prospect we needn't consider," said the duke haughtily.
"We never know what we may come to," said Pollyooly with a happy remembrance of the pious wisdom of her Aunt Hannah. "But Millie isn't going into the workhouse anyhow. I'm not going to let her. But she ought to go to a home and be trained to marry an empire-builder. She's that kind of orphan: Mr. Ruf—a gentleman says that she is. And I came to ask you if you'd give her a nomination so that she could go into the Bellingham Home. They'll do anything you tell them there; and if you said so, they'd take her in at once. And she'd be ever so much obliged to you. She'd never forget it—never. And so should I."
She was leaning forward with clasped hands and shining, imploring eyes. The duke was not insensible to the charm of her beauty, or to the appeal of her pleading voice. He was even more sensible to the tribute she had paid to his power in the matter of the Bellingham Home. But he was in a captious mood; and he did not wish to oblige her. His mind was chiefly full of the fact that he had made himself look foolish by kidnapping her and had had to pay her six pounds compensation. He was still sore about the foolishness and also about the money, for his was a thrifty soul.
But Pollyooly's angel face made a direct refusal difficult. He coughed and said:
"I—er—don't—er—do things in this—er—irregular way. My—er—nominations are—er—only given after I have been approached in the proper way and received testimonials and—er—sifted them out so as to nominate the most deserving orphan among the many applicants for admission."
"There couldn't be a more deserving orphan than Millie," said Pollyooly quickly.