A SATISFACTORY REFERENCE

Published in The Queenslander, Brisbane, Australia, 21 Apr 1900

I

PARKER paused in her walk, fearful lest the slightest noise should betray her. It was not dark yet, and Parker had no difficulty in recognising the features of the speakers. One of them, indeed, she knew perfectly well; for William, the second footman, was by way of being an admirer of hers, a state of things forced upon him against his better judgment.

"A very pretty gal is Parker," he had declared."Parker's got style; and there's times when she might pass for quite the toff. But she's uppish, and nobody in the servants' 'all's good enough for her. A nice gal, but not the sort to make a man 'appy and comfortable."

So it came about that Parker, the Honourable Nora Vandeleur's maid, spent very little of her spare time with the rest of the servants. There was a legend extant that her father had once been a colonel in the army. Before the end of her first month she had found herself left severely alone.

Usually Parker spent an hour or so after the family had gone in to dinner rambling about the grounds. At that time the law was somewhat relaxed, and the housekeeper forgot to frown. Parker found this by far the pleasantest hour of the day. This evening she felt specially free from trouble, it was a balmy August evening, the hour close upon 9, and the light was just beginning to fade. Those two male voices in the shrubbery seemed to boom against the still air.

Parker had almost blundered upon the speakers before she saw them. That a listener was near neither of them dreamt for a moment. Peeping through the acacias Parker