I had now begun to watch for my young lady wherever I went, and it was astonishing how my quickened senses enabled me to find her in the most crowded thoroughfare, or in strange and out-of-the-way places. It was almost as if there were some secret power which drew us together. And when I was blessed to meet her the day was always one of sunshine for me, however heavy lowered the dim clouds. The next afternoon our meeting was so unexpected that I could not but set it down to the ruling of a higher power. I had gone out to see how my McNeil clients were coming on, having doubtless some latent hope that I might find her there; but she had not been there for several days. They had heard of her, however, for she had got the husband and father a place and that made sunshine in the wretched little hovel, as bare as it was. I was touched by their gratitude, and after taking note of the wretched poverty of the family, and promising that I would try to get the mother some sort of work, I strolled on. I had not gone far when I suddenly came on her face to face. The smile that came into her eyes must have brought my soul into my face. Love is the true miracle-worker. It can change the most prosaic region into a scene of romance. At sight of Eleanor Leigh's slim figure the dull street suddenly became an enchanted land. "Well, we appear fated to meet," she said with a smile and intonation that my heart feasted on for days. She little knew how assiduously I had played Fate during these past weeks, haunting the streets near her home or those places which she blessed with her presence. This meeting, however, was purely accidental, unless it be true, as I sometimes almost incline to think, that some occult power which we cannot understand rules all our actions and guides our footsteps toward those we love supremely. John Marvel always called it Providence. "Well, may I not see you home?" I asked, and without waiting for her consent, I took it for granted and turned back with her, though she protested against taking me out of my way. I had indeed some difficulty in not saying then and there, "My way is where you are." She had been to see one of her scholars who was sick, "the little cripple, whom you know," she said. I suddenly began to think cripples the most interesting of mortals. She gave me, as we strolled along, an account of her first acquaintance with her and her mother; and of how John Marvel had found out their condition and helped them. Then she had tried to help them a little, and had gotten the mother to let her have the little girl at her school. "Now they are doing a little better," she said, "but you never saw such wretchedness. The woman had given up everything in the world to try to save her husband, and such a wretched hole as they lived in you couldn't imagine. They did not have a single article of furniture in their room when I--when Mr. Marvel first found them. It had all gone to the Loan Company--they were starving."