s?"

"I don't know. Wait a minute. I must read it over again," I gasped in
turn. "May I read it aloud?"

Million, clutching her starched white apron, nodded.

I read it aloud, this letter of Destiny.

It bore the address of a lawyer's office in Chancery Lane, and it began:

"_To_ MISS NELLIE MILLION.

"Dear Madam:--I am instructed to inform you that under the will
of your late uncle, Mr. Samuel Million, of Chicago, U.S.A., you
have been appointed heiress to his fortune of one million
dollars.

"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."

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 with him for
enlisting. I heard he was in America, gettin' on well----"

"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 at L20 a year!
To think of it!

I could se