“It will do much good to many young women, but it cannot do all. The girls who are sent are young, but they are not young enough. It is already too late to do all that we wish. The time to influence girls is before they become engaged. I should like to hand over the engaged girls to Miss Wentworth and Drom, with the other valuable assistants whom we have, and myself to form a home for neglected girls between the ages of twelve and fourteen; for that is the important age.” “Yes, it is; but, you know, Margaret, that girls as well as boys are to be kept at the ordinary and the technical school now until they are fourteen. And they are no longer to be trusted to anybody who likes to take up the teaching profession for a livelihood; some of the best, and ablest, and highest people of the land are undertaking the work of the upper standards in the schools.” “Yes; I do not forget that, and I am most thankful for it. In a few years such a place as that at High Seathorpe will surely not be required. In the meantime, it is needed very greatly, only the worst of it is that those who need it most will not come to share its advantages.” “I wish they could be compelled. But I do not myself think so highly of these big Homes, as they are called; they are very different from real homes, you know, Margaret. If I ever have a home of my own—which I suppose I never shall have—I should like to keep two rooms for the use of poor little girls who have come to the turning-point in their lives, and need a friend.” “Yes, I should like that, too,” said Margaret. “Very well,” rejoined Tom, “you can have the privilege at once. There are several unused rooms in the Manor House.” It was late at night before Mr. Whitwell reached home. “We found your treasure-trove, Margaret,” he said, “and have placed the contents in safe keeping at my London bank. It was a most astonishing find. I had no idea that it would prove so valuable. You are a lady of fortune.” “I do not feel that the money is mine, Mr. Whitwell. It belongs to Mr. Dallington.” “No; that it certainly does not. It belongs to you. John’s uncle had every right to do what he pleased with his own, and the terms of his will could not have been more explicit than they were. You are his heiress after Mr. Harris, the house and all that was in it being left absolutely to you. I am glad that wall was not destroyed; but the thing that puzzles me is where Captain Dallington got all that money, foreign and English, and why he chose to hide it in a wall, instead of putting it in a bank, or investing it in some way, as any other man would have done. But he was always eccentric. I have been told that even as a boy he was considered strange, and only a little better than an idiot; and I think he must have remained so. But whatever may have been his reason, he was evidently very fond of you. Do not answer me unless you please, Margaret; but I have often wondered whether you know the secret of his life and of yours.”