clean-shaven face, and gold-rimmed glasses. He turned, with a very pleasant smile, to me.

Step

"Good morning, Miss Million," he said. "I am very glad to have the——"

"This is Miss Million," I told him, putting my hand on her brown sleeve and giving her arm a little, heartening pat.

Million moistened her lips and drew another long breath as the fatherly old gentleman turned the eyes and their gold-rimmed glasses upon her small, diffident self.

"Ah! M'm—really! Of course! How do you do, Miss Million?"

"Nicely—nicely, thanks!" breathed Million huskily.

[Pg 27] "Won't you sit down, ladies? Yes. Now, Miss Million——"

[Pg 27]

And Mr. Chesterton began some sort of a congratulatory speech, while Million smiled in a frightened sort of way, breathing hard. She was full of surprises to me that morning; and, I gathered, to her lawyer also.

"Thank you, I'm sure. Thank you, sir," she said. Then suddenly to me, "We didn't ought to—to—to keep this gentleman, did we, Miss?" Then to Mr. Chesterton again, "D'you mind me asking, sir, if we 'adn't better have a cab?"

"A cab?" the lawyer repeated, in a startled tone. "What for?"

"To take away the money, sir," explained little Million gravely. "That money o' mine from me uncle. What I've called about."

"Ah—to take away——" began the lawyer. Then he suddenly laughed outright. I laughed. But together we caught sight of little Million's face, blushing and hurt, sensitive of ridicule. We stopped laughing at once.

And then the old lawyer, looking and speaking as kindly as possible, began to explain matters to this ingenuous little heiress, as painstakingly as if he were making things clear to a child.

"The capital of one million dollars, or of two hundred thousand pounds of English money, is at present not here; it is where it was—invested in the late Mr. Samuel Million's sausage and ham-curing factory in Chicago, U. S. A."

Here Million's face fell.

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