She reached a small town only a few miles from her old home among the mountains, and then sent a messenger for Chi Lu to come to her.

He came at once, glad to do anything for the “young missee” whom he had served for years, and learned to regard with great affection.

Virgie felt sure that she could safely confide in him, so she told him something of her trouble, and asked him to help her gather the proofs of her marriage.

He proved himself very efficient in this respect, and was only too eager to secure justice for her.

After all was done, and she had the precious papers in her own hands, she would have paid him handsomely and sent him hack to the mountains again.  But he threw at her feet the money she offered him, and begged to be allowed to go with her wherever she went—­to let him work for her and the “little missee,” as he used to in the old days before she went away.  “He did not want any money—­only let him have a little rice and curry, and a mat to sleep on, and he would serve her as long as she needed him.”

Virgie was moved to tears by this evidence of his faithfulness, and, though she had not thought of such a thing before, it suddenly occurred to her that it might be a wise proceeding on her part to grant his request.

She knew that he was entirely trustworthy; he was very capable in many ways, and she was sure she should feel a sense of security and protection with him that she could not experience to go alone into a strange place, and have to depend entirely upon herself.

“I should like to have you, Chi,” she said, thoughtfully, “but I am afraid it would be hardly fair to you, for I haven’t a great deal of money, and I shall have to be very economical.”

Chi Lu’s little round black eyes flashed at this. “He takee monee too?” he demanded, with contemptuous emphasis on the pronoun.

Virgie flushed.  She could not bear, from another, the slightest reference to the wrong she had suffered.

“How much monee?” the man hastened to add, as he saw that she was troubled.

“I have a little over four thousand dollars,” Virgie replied, thinking it best to fully confide in him.

Her bills had been heavy in New York, and it had taken the most of one thousand dollars out of the five thousand that Sir William had deposited for her, to settle them.

Chi Lu gave a grunt of delight at the information.

“Good! missee live long.  Chi Lu know how; he fix ’em,” he said, with an air of confidence that was reassuring and Virgie believed that he would indeed make a better steward of her limited means than she could possibly be with her inexperience, so she resolved to trust him, and told him that he should go with her if he wished.

The next question to settle was regarding a place of residence, and she finally decided, after talking the matter over with her servant, that she would be less conspicuous in some large city, and as there was no place she knew so well as San Francisco, she resolved to once more make her home in that city.