“I was his lawyer,” he said, “and for many years transacted all his business matters, but I had no idea of his personal wealth. He had altered his will many times during the last few years, leaving his money first to one charitable institution and then to another; but in his last will, which he made as far back as eight months ago, he has left you his entire fortune.” “Me?” Ada gasped. “Me? What do you mean? He didn’t even know my name.” “Yes, he did. He found it out quite easily. Yes, my dear young lady. You will now be almost as wealthy as if your father had never failed.” “Oh, stop a minute,” Ada cried, “till I can really understand it. Am I the milliner’s girl that was mentioned in the papers? Oh, I’m quite, quite certain you have made some mistake. Do have pity on me, sir; I have suffered so much,” and she put up her hand to her head and swayed a little backwards and forwards. “Oh, please don’t faint, my dear young lady. I am no ladies’ man, and I don’t know what to do.” “No, I will not faint,” replied Ada. “It is really wonderful what a girl can bear. But I hope you are not deceiving me.” “I am quite sure I am not, if you are not deceiving me, and personating Ada Nicoli. I wish I could have broken it to you more gently; but I am no ladies’ man.” “You have done it very kindly,” the girl said, with a great sob of joy in her throat, “only I wish the old man was alive, that I could thank him, and love him a little. He was very lonely, I think.” “Yes, he was very lonely,” the lawyer said, “and it is strange what an impression you made upon him.” “I don’t see how I could,” Ada replied simply. “I never did anything.” “I think I can understand,” the lawyer said with a touch of gallantry which showed that he was not such a poor ladies’ man as he had asserted, bringing a pretty flush to her cheek. After they had talked a few minutes, Ada said— “May I call the children down to tell them?” “Certainly,” the lawyer replied. “The affair is no secret.” When Ada told the children that they were no longer poor, and that they need not live in the top attic-room in a boarding-house, they took the news more complacently than their sister had done. “I’m glad we can go to a decent school,” Marjory said, little knowing how her words hurt Ada, who had worked her fingers to the bone to pay for her middle-class schooling. “I wish we had been left a new poppa, instead of some money,” Sadie said regretfully. “If we’re rich again, you’ll drive about with mumma, I suppose, and we won’t have any fun. I like being poor.” “And living in a hen-roost?” Ada asked laughingly. Sadie had always called their low-roofed attic a hen-roost. “Yes, ’cause I like sleeping with you better than with a cross nurse.” The old lawyer got up. He had to take his spectacles off and rub them before he could see his way across the room. “My dear young lady,” he said, “you have made their poverty so attractive that the old gentleman’s fortune is scarcely appreciated.”