"Shall I ring the bell, Sir?"
"If you please, Mr. Sterling. Now, Millicent, dear, whose name shall have the honor of standing as witness on this document? There is Aunt Peggy,—is good at using pothooks, but not so good at making them. Her mark won't exactly do."
"Why, father! I shall, of course, have my little favorite, Lucy Green; her signature will be perfectly beautiful. And by the way, Mr. Dartmouth, here is a thing I haven't thought of before. With this Lucy of mine for an attendant, I am worth about twice as much as I should have been without her, and yet no mention has been made of this in the bargain."
"Ha! ha!" said Chip. "Thought of in good time. Let Mr. Sterling add the item at once. I am content."
"First, however, you shall see the good girl herself, Mr. Dartmouth, and then we can have a postscript—or should I say a codicil?—on her account. John, please say to Lucy, I wish her to come to me. After all the stocks and bonds in the world, Mr. Dartmouth, our lives are what our servants please to make them."
"True, indeed, my love; but the comfort is, if we are well stocked with bonds of the right sort, servants that don't suit can be changed for those that do."
"And the more changes, the worse, commonly;—an exception is so rare, I dread nothing like change. The chance of improving a bad one is even better, I think."
"I don't believe there is anything good in the flunkey line that money won't buy. I have always found I could have anything I wanted, if I saw fit to pay its price. Money, no matter what simpletons preach, money, my dear, is"——
"Why, Lucy, what is the matter?" exclaimed Miss Millicent, with some surprise and anxiety, as she saw the girl, who had just entered, instead of advancing, awkwardly shrink on one side into a chair behind the door, with a shudder, as if she had trod on a reptile. The next moment she was at her side, earnestly whispering something in her ear, evidently an explanation of the circumstances of the case, to which Lucy had hitherto been an entire stranger.
"Pray, excuse me, Ma'am," was the girl's scarce audible response to some request.