"I shall be pleased to call upon you and to await your instructions, if you will kindly acquaint me with your present address——" "That was sent to the Orphanage," whispered Million. "or I should be very pleased to meet you if you would make it convenient to come and call upon me here at my offices at any time which may suit you. I am, Madam, "Yours obediently, "Josiah Chesterton." Josiah Chesterton There was silence in our drawing-room. Million's little face turned, with a positively scared expression, from Aunt Anastasia to me. "D'you think it's true, Miss?" "Have you ever heard of this Mr. Samuel Million before?" "Only that he was poor dad's brother that quarrelled [Pg 19] with him for enlisting. I heard he was in America, gettin' on well——" [Pg 19] "That class," murmured my Aunt Anastasia with concentrated resentment, "always gets on!" That was horrid of her! I didn't know how to make it up to Million. I put out both hands and took her little roughened hands. "Million, I do congratulate you. I believe it's true," I said heartily, finding my voice at last. "You'll have heaps of money now. Everything you want. A millionaire's heiress, that's what you are!" "Me, miss?" gasped the bewildered-looking Million. "Me, and not you, that wanted money? Me an heiress? Oh, lor'! whatever next?" The next morning—the morning after that startling avalanche of news had been precipitated into the monotonous landscape of our daily lives—I accompanied Million to the lawyer's office, where she was to hear further particulars of her unexpected, her breath-taking, her epic legacy. A million dollars! Two hundred thousand pounds! And all for the little grey-eyed, black-haired daughter of a sergeant in a line regiment, brought up in a soldiers' orphanage to domestic service
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