ver came as a
surprise to her! But conversation with this Eleanor was quite another
matter. It was impossible to have the least idea beforehand of what she
was going to say.

"How?" she asked again, quivering with impatience, for Eleanor, instead
of answering her immediately, was looking at her with a teasing smile on
her lips evidently enjoying the prospect of keeping her for a moment or
two longer on the tip-toe of expectation.

"Well, before I tell you," she said, "I will give you three guesses. Now,
put yourself in my place and think what you would have liked to have had
happen to you if you had been me."

"I should have liked some kind, lovely lady to have come and adopted me,
and taken me away to a beautiful home in the country, where I should have
had lots and lots of brothers and sisters," said Margaret, faithful to
the idea that the companionship of other young people was the greatest
delight a girl of her age could enjoy.

But Eleanor shook her head. "I shouldn't have liked that a bit," she
said. "I should have been sure to have quarrelled with a whole ready-made
family of brothers and sisters, and they would not have loved me at all,
and the kind, lovely lady would have been jolly sorry she ever adopted
me, and would have turned me out of her lovely home pretty smartly. Guess
again. I can tell you that the good fortune that came to me was ever so
much more worth having than being adopted."

"I cannot imagine any occurrence that would have caused me more
pleasure," said Margaret in a hesitating fashion. "Was it, perhaps,
discovered that the solicitor who lost your stepfather's money had
not lost it quite all, and that there was some left for you?

"Better than that," said Eleanor; "much better. Guess again. I forgot
to mention that I do get a little money from the wreck of our fortunes,
about twenty pounds a year, but I shall never get more than that, and I
know it."

"Did some one fall in love with you, then?" said Margaret rather shyly.

"Gracious, no!" said Eleanor. "No men except one or two old professors
were ever allowed inside Waterloo House. And if a prince on a coal-black
horse, as handsome and as rich as a prince in a fairy tale, had come
riding up to the front door, and begged for my hand on bended knee, I
would have said 'No, thank you' if by saying 'Yes, please,' I must have
lost this wonderful thing that is mine. Have you ever heard of Melba or
Patti?"

"Certainly," answered Margaret,