For Alice to want a thing was for her to have it, if possession were possible, and her father answered her:
“Yes, daughter, you shall have her,” without knowing at all who Milly Leach was. But Alice explained that she was the girl who lived in the little red house where Ann had often taken her the summer before to play with Tom and Bessie. And so it came about that Ann was sent that afternoon to the farm house with a request from Mr. Thornton that Mildred should come for the summer and amuse his daughter. Three dollars a week was the remuneration offered, for he always held out a golden bait when the fish was doubtful, as he thought it might be in this case. Mrs. Leach was better, and sitting up while Mildred combed and brushed the hair much like her own, except that it was softer and smoother, because it had more care and there was less of it.
“Oh, mother,” she cried, when Ann made her errand known, “can’t I go? Three dollars a week! Only think, what a lot; and I’ll give it all to you, and you can get that pretty French calico at Mr. Overton’s store. May I go?”
“Who will do the work when I’m sick?” Mrs. Leach asked, herself a good deal moved by the three dollars a week, which seemed a fortune to her.
“I guess they’ll let me come home when you have a headache,” Milly pleaded, and on this condition it was finally arranged that she should go to the Park for a time at least, and two days after we saw her shelling peas and longing for a change, the change came and she started out on her career in her best gingham dress and white apron, with her small satchel of clothes in her hand and a great lump in her throat as she kissed her mother and Bessie and Charlie, and would have kissed Tom if he had not disappeared with a don’t-care air and a watery look in his eyes, which he wiped with his checked shirt sleeve, and then, boy-like, threw a green apple after his sister, hiding behind the tree when she looked around to see whence it came.
It was a lovely morning, and Thornton Park lay fair and beautiful in the distance as she walked rapidly on until a familiar whistle stopped her and she saw Hugh hurrying across the fields and waving his hat to her.
“Hello!” he said, as he came to her side, “I nearly broke my neck to catch you. And so you are going to be a hired girl. Let me carry that satchel,” and he took it from her while she answered hotly, “I ain’t a hired girl. I’m Allie’s little friend; that’s what she said when she came with Ann last night and we made the bargain, and I’m to have three dollars a week.”
“Three dollars a week! That is big,” Hugh said, staggered a little at the price. “But, I say, don’t go so fast. Let’s sit down awhile and talk;” and seating himself upon a log, with Mildred beside him and the satchel at his feet, he went on: “Milly, I don’t want you to go to Thornton Park. Won’t you give it up? Seems as if I was losing you.”
“You never had me to lose,” was the girl’s reply, and Hugh continued:
“That’s so; but I mean that I like you better than any girl I ever knew; like you just as I should my sister if I had one.”