Millie

“ The two women made a strange, contrast as they faced one another, Millicent with her youth, beauty and happiness, the other scowling, partly at the sudden sunlight, partly at the surprise of finding a stranger there.
"I beg your pardon," said Millie smiling. "Do you want any one?"
"Do I want any one?" said the other, in a voice half-snarl, half-irony; "that's good! In one's own house too!"
"Oh, I beg your pardon!" cried Millie again blushing. "I didn't know. I've only been here an hour. I'm Miss Platt's new secretary." ”

“ Millie was smug. Millie would smile when she was a little older—and she would go respectfully to church all her life—Miriam had felt a horror even of the work-basket Millie had been tidying during their conversation—and Millie had gone upstairs, she knew, feeling that they had “begun to be friends” and would be different the next time they met. It was her own fault. What had made her speak to her? She was like that.... Eve had told her. She got excited and interested in people and then wanted to throw them up. ”

“ I can imagine no one so well fitted to exert the wisest influence upon Millie's life as Mrs. Walton.
There is a woman who has run the whole gamut of girlish folly, and who knows all the phases of temptation. She knows what it is to possess physical attractions, and to be flattered by the admiration of men, and she has passed through the dark waters of disillusion and sorrow. She would be the one to help Millie out of dangerous places by sympathy and understanding, instead of using sermons and keys. ”

“ May gets into the cupboard. Millie takes up Annet’s new shawl and puts it all over her.
Millie. No one will think that ’tisn’t you, in the dusk.
Annet. O Millie, what is it that you’ve got me to do?
Millie. Never you mind, Annet—you shall see what ’tis to have a grand suitor and I shall get a little while of quiet out yonder, where I can think on Giles. ”

“ Millie stormed on, “I like a big groom, a strong one. I shall see about this.”
“Oh!” smiled Johnny, “if it’s strength you want, I guess you’ll find me there. And for horses, I know how to groom them.”
Millie cast an appraising eye over the grays. ”

“ Then Uncle Amos suddenly demonstrated his skill at driving one-handed and something more than the blanket-shawl was around Millie’s shoulders.
“Ach, my,” she said after a while, “to think of it--me, a hired girl, to get a nice, good man like you for husband!”
“And me, a fat dopple of a farmer to get a girl like you! I’ll be good to you, Millie, honest! You just see once if I won’t! You needn’t work so hard no more. I’ll buy the farm off my sister and we’ll sell some of the land and stop this goin’ to market. It’s too hard work. We can take it easier; we’re both gettin’ old, ain’t, Millie?” ”

“ Millie repeated again. They were silent for a little, then Millie said: "You know, I've been thinking all the evening what Peter once said to us about our being enchanted—because we are young. There's something awfully true about it. When things are at their very worst—when I'm having the most awful row with Bunny or Victoria's more tiresome than you can imagine—although I say to myself, 'I'm perfectly miserable,' I'm not really because there's something behind it all that I'm enjoying hugely. I wouldn't miss a moment of it. I want every scrap. It is like an enchantment really. ”

“ And Millie, for instance, complete and vital though she was, with plenty of imagination, did not know that this world existed. Could he only find a clue to it how happy he would be! One moment would be enough. If for one single instant the heavens would open and he could see and could say then: "By this moment of vision I will live for ever! I know now that this other world exists and is external, and that one day I shall enter into it completely." He fancied—indeed he liked to fancy—that his adventure with Christina would, before it closed, offer him this vision. ”

“ It must not be supposed, however, that she was always irritable and in evil temper. Far from it; between her gusts of despair, anger and assaulted pride she was very sweet indeed, assuring Millie that she was a wicked woman and deserved no mercy from any one.
"I cannot think how you can endure me, my Millie," she would say. "You sweet creature! Wonderful girl! What I've done without you all these years I cannot imagine. I mean well. I do indeed. I'm sure there isn't a woman in the country who wants every one to be happy as I do. How simple it seems! Happiness! ”

“ Let some one offer me a thousand pounds down and I will sell my soul for three months. One must exist, you know."
Victoria's happiness was touching to behold. The Blocks, the Balaclavas and the rest were entirely forgotten. Millie had hoped, at first, that she might do something towards stemming this new tide of hungry ones. But after a warning or two she saw that she was powerless. "Why, Millie," cried Victoria, "you're becoming a cynic. You suspect every one. I'm sure Mrs. Norman is perfectly sweet and it's too adorable of her to want me to be god-mother to her new darling baby. ”

“ Miss Dalrymple has probably forgotten that we ever met.”
In his hansom Wareham reflected that women were difficult to understand in their dealings with each other. Anne had always been charming, why should Millie turn a sharp edge towards her? It was the more astonishing because Millie had nothing of the angular about her. As little would he have imagined that she had the heroic soul. Yet one may call it so when a woman bears the quenching of her hopes without complaint or bitterness. Millie went cheerfully about her daily occupations. ”

“ Why should not some one for whom youth was over, whose income was an uncertain quantity, decide to spend it for her?
Millie called both these men adventurers. There she was unjust. Major Miles Mereward was no adventurer; he was simply an honest soldier really attracted by Victoria. Honest, but Lord, how dull!
As he sat in Victoria's room, the chair creaking beneath his fat body, his red hair rough and unbrushed, his red moustache untrimmed, his red hands clutching his old grey soft hat, he was the most uncomfortable, awkward, silent man Millie had ever met. He had nothing to say at all ”

“ When he got back to the car Millie had just a moment to greet him as a hero before it developed that the milk was no use to the baby unless it could be heated.
“That will be very difficult,” said the doctor.
Millie rolled her lovely eyes up at him under the dissipated hat.
“You can think of some way, can't you, Jack?” she said.
“Certainly,” he answered, glad to show that a poet has more invention than a scientist. “There must be a fire in the engine.” He wanted to sit down and demand Millie's undivided attention while he described to her the transformation in the ogress. ”

“ The contrast between Millie and Nellie is extraordinary. For Millie scents to go through life, making difficulties; Nellie goes through life, smoothing difficulties away. Millie is never happy unless she finds herself a centre of attention: Nellie is never so happy as in the background. ”

“ As to Millie's loveliness, I conceive him answering that she was 'all right.' And then, or on some such occasion, the Fairy Lady told him she had fallen in love with him as he slept in the moonlight, and so he had been brought into Fairyland, and she had thought, not knowing of Millie, that perhaps he might chance to love her. 'But now you know you can't,' she said, 'so you must stop with me just a little while, and then you must go back to Millie.' She told him that, and you know Skelmersdale was already in love with her, but the pure inertia of his mind kept him in the way he was going. ”

“ The other members of the household had much to occupy their hands for the next hour, setting things to rights, as Millie said, the while their hearts and thoughts were speeding after the two who had smiled and looked as though no other mortals had ever known such love. ”

“ Millie went across to him and kissed him on the forehead.
"Of course I don't think you an ass. But you are easily taken in by people—you always believe what they say."
Henry nodded his head. "Perhaps I don't so much as I mean to. But it's the best thing to try to. You get far more that way."
The three sat there in silence. At last Millicent said:
"Isn't it queer? Here's the world on the very edge of every sort of adventure, and here are we on the very edge too? I feel in my bones that we shall go through great things this year—all of us. ”

“ I, too, with a woman's eye, have seen his deep, strong affection for you, and with a mother's jealous love I have studied his character. He is a young giant, Millie, whom you unconsciously awoke to manhood. ”

“ Poor old girl! But HE knows what's best for us, Millie."
"Hadn't I better get Louey on deck?"
"Don't wake the child. If she's asleep, let her sleep."
"Yes, but, Phil, I can't stay down there any longer, boxed up." Millie shuddered. "I must see what's coming. And, Phil, listen to me. Phil, remember one thing: you are to look to Lou. If anybody can do anything for me, Hero will do it. You've got to save little Lou, for Lucy's sake."
"God bless you, Millie. You're a brave woman."
"Am I?" A smile flickered, as she thought how little he could guess at the deadly heart-sinking below. ”

“ But the minstrel, bracing one knee against the brick and mortar, thus steadying himself and giving his hands full play, began a series of pantomines so strange that Millie involuntarily exclaimed:
“Why, what in the world ails the man!” And then, struck once more by the pitiful appeal in his eyes, she cried: “Look here, are you sick?” ”

“ Millie said, slowly. “You don’t know enough about men to tell whether a man’s an outsider or not.... What’s he done?”
“In Russia—in Moscow—he had a mistress for years—and they had a son. He’s never said anything about it, but it’s true. They say he had an awful reputation in Moscow.”
“Who’s ‘they’?” said Millie, slowly. The colour mounted into her cheeks.
“A man I know—a friend of Seymour’s. Oh! I know it’s true. There isn’t any sort of doubt about it.”
“I daresay it is. Men are like that,” Millie said, with profundity.
“Decent men aren’t. Not the sort of man who will marry Katie.” ”

“ She'd got to the quoting-proverbs stage by that time. 'Ah, my dear,' she said to Millie. 'Marry in haste, repent at leisure.' Millie stood up to her like a little brick. 'I'm afraid that proverb doesn't apply to me, Aunt Elizabeth,' she said, 'because I haven't repented!' What do you think of that, Laddie?"
"Of course, she hasn't had much leisure lately," I agreed.
Ukridge's jaw dropped slightly. But he rallied swiftly.
"Idiot! That wasn't what she meant. Millie's an angel!"
"Of course she is," I said cordially. "She's a precious sight too good for you, you old rotter. ”

“ Why can't we all like one another? I'm sure I'm ready enough."
Millie said: "I suppose it doesn't do to spoil them too much."
"You're right, dear, it doesn't. But as soon as I speak severely to them they give notice, and I am so tired of registry offices. I just go in and out of them all day. I do hope you're good with servants."
"I'll do my best," said Millie, smiling bravely, although her heart was already sinking at the sense of her inexperience and ignorance.
"I'm sure you will," said Miss Platt, who was now arrayed in bright blue. "Method is what this house wants. You look methodical. ”

“ It was then that the kindness of the past found its fruit in the devotion displayed by Millie Christine towards her only living protector, Mrs. Smith, whom she regards with filial affection, and from whom she was fully determined never to separate herself. To retrieve the fallen fortunes of the family she, now free, consented to place herself on exhibition, and afford the world the opportunity of seeing the most marvelous physical development which has ever existed in the human family. ”

“ Millie inquired if he had seen the waterfall.
“That little thing!”
“Speak respectfully, please! One of the highest in Europe, two thousand feet, with a jump of five hundred, isn’t to be dismissed in such a slighting tone.”
“You are going to rival Mrs Martyn in facts. But I see you have taken Gudvangen to your heart. Shall we go and explore?” On the way he was struck with Millie’s light-heartedness, and said to himself that here was one of those happy natures from which care rolls off. She spoke with almost extreme admiration of Anne, but Mrs Martyn she did not like. ”

“ What don’t they study for society folks! A different dress for every time of the day! What would you think if you had to dress like I do, with my calico dress on all day, only when I wear my lawn for cool or in winter a woolen one for warm?”
Millie went off, puzzled at the ways of society.
“Is she just a servant?” asked Isabel when they heard her heavy tread down the stairs.
“She isn’t just anything! She’s a jewel! Mother couldn’t do without Millie. We’ve had her almost twenty years. We can leave everything to her and know it will be taken care of. ”

“ All right, I guess, if Millie, here, don’t think it makes too much work. Poor Millie’s got the worst of all the work to do. I ain’t so strong, and there’s much always to do. Of course, Amanda helps, but none of us do as much as Millie.”
“But me, don’t I get paid for it, and paid good?” asked the hired girl, sending a loving glance at Mrs. Reist. “Far as I go it’s all right to have Isabel come for a while. Mebbe she can help, too, sometimes with the work.” ”