When this plan was mooted to Eleanor, her horror was extreme. She implored her father not to attempt to carry it out, declared her readiness to undertake any kind of service, no matter how menial, but spoke in such piteous terms of the degradation she should feel in having to appear before the public, that the Angus Irvine of a few years before would not have required her to speak twice on the subject. Now, however, drink and misfortune had rendered him callous; he released himself from his daughter's weeping embrace, and bade her make up her mind to what he had decided. In an agony of terror and fright, the girl rushed off to the one person in London whom she knew to be a true and influential friend of her father's, Lord Stortford, and told him all, imploring his interference on her behalf. Lord Stortford was greatly touched at the girl's entreaties, and after a consultation with his wife, he called on Angus Irvine, and, without hinting at his interview with Eleanor, said that he had a plan to which he requested Mr. Irvine's sanction. This was that Eleanor should come to and live in Grosvenor-square as companion to his daughter May. This proposition suited Angus Irvine very well. He would be rid of the very moderate expense entailed upon him by Eleanor, who would hand over to him the liberal salary she was to receive in consideration of her services; so that he made no objection, and the next week saw Eleanor installed as May's companion in Grosvenor-square, where, a great friendship having grown up between the girls, she remained for eighteen months, until May's marriage with Lord Forestfield. Later in the afternoon of the first day of her convalescence, May renewed her conversation with her friend. 'You must have thought it very unkind of me, dear,' she said, placing her hand in Eleanor's, 'that notwithstanding our great intimacy, and the love and affection I had from you in Grosvenor-square, I have scarcely taken any notice of you since my marriage.' 'Not at all, dear Lady Forestfield,' said Eleanor. 'I never imagined that that intimacy, pleasant as it was to me, could be kept up. You were not out during the most part of the time I was with you, you must remember, and after your marriage I knew that you would take up your position in society, which involved innumerable claims upon you, and would form your own circle of friends.' 'From which circle,' said May, with a sigh, 'I omitted you, the very best of them, the only one who has remembered me in my time of trouble. I think you said you were staying with your sister? Where is Mr. Irvine?' 'Papa has been dead for nearly a twelvemonth,' said Eleanor, glancing down at her black dress. 'He was ill, if you recollect, just before your marriage, and he never recovered, but faded gradually away.' 'I wish my poor papa had been alive to help him,' said May; 'he would have seen that his old friend wanted for nothing.'