"Don't you like me to call
you Millie - for short?" I questioned apologetically. "No," she returned
gravely; "it is not my name - my name is Millicent." And so it had to be
to the end of the chapter.
Then there was her speech - I wondered how she got it! For it was unlike
that of the people she lived among of her own class. No word-clipping
and slurring, no "naughty English" as old Nordin called it, and sing-
song intonation with her! She spoke with an almost startling
distinctness, giving every syllable its proper value, and her words
were as if they had been read out of a nicely written book.
Nevertheless, we got on fairly well together, meeting on most days at
tea-time in the kitchen, when we would have nice sober little talks and
look at her lessons and books and pictures, sometimes unbending so far
as to draw pigs on her slate with our eyes shut, and laughing at the
result just like ordinary persons.
It was during my last visit, after an absence of some months from that
part of the country, that one evening on coming in I was told by her
mother that Millicent had gone for the milk, and that I would have to
wait for my tea till she came back.
