ke her
very happy if she would consent to come to me."

"I think her consent may be taken for granted," said Mr. Anstruther in
his old arbitrary manner and quite forgetting his admission of a few
moments back; "she is still considerably under age and is therefore
subject to my orders until she attains her majority."

"But I should not care in the least for a daughter who was ordered to
love me," said Lady Strangways, smiling.

However, when Margaret was summoned to the library and her aunt's
suggestion made known to her, the radiant look of happiness with which
she received it left no one, least of all Lady Strangways, in doubt of
her willingness to obey this last command of her grandfather's.

And so Margaret's immediate future being satisfactorily settled, Mrs.
Murray went back to Windy Gap. She found Eleanor in her room on her knees
before her open trunk which she was busily engaged in packing.

Very deliberately Mrs. Murray closed the trunk, and, perhaps because all
the available chairs were strewn with Eleanor's clothes, sat down on the
lid.

"Lady Strangways has adopted Margaret," she said.

"Oh," exclaimed Eleanor eagerly, "I am glad! Margaret will like that. She
had already fallen in love with her aunt, and will like nothing better
than to be with her. How is she after last night?"

"Quite well, except for a very bad cold in her head. But I will tell you
all about her adventures presently. It is of you I want to speak now."
Suddenly she bent forward and put her hands on Eleanor's shoulders.
"Eleanor, dear," she said, "will you let me adopt you as Lady Strangways
has adopted Margaret? I would not make the offer, dear, if you had any
relations of your own to go to. A lonely, deaf old woman has not much to
offer to a young girl like you with all her life before her, but it would
be such a pleasure to feel that I had you to live for. Hush, don't answer
yet. Lady Strangways has told me all about you--as much, at least, as she
had learned from Margaret. And I know all about your wonderful voice and
the possibilities that lie in front of you, if you can have proper
training. I am not a wealthy woman, but I have more than enough for both
of us, and if you will stay with me we will go to Paris, Milan, or any
other place that Madame Martelli says you ought to go to. And you shall
have the best teaching in Europe."

What answer Eleanor made to this astoundingly splendid offer neither she
nor Mrs. Murray could eve