"Is Mr. McAllister rich?" Margaret Elizabeth dropped her arms in a
surprise which in its turn stirred a like emotion in her aunt's breast,
for Miss Bentley put rather a peculiar emphasis, it would seem, upon the
word rich. "I should never have guessed it," she added.

If Mrs. Pennington had been perfectly honest with herself, she would
have perceived that her own surprise indicated a suspicion that minus
his wealth the aforesaid sterling qualities were something of a dead
weight, but not for worlds would she have owned this. It would be a
great thing for Margaret Elizabeth, if she liked him. If she could be
the means of establishing dear old Richard's child in a position such
as the future Mrs. Augustus would occupy, she would feel she had done
her full duty. Mrs. Pennington was strong in the matter of duty.

"I should never have guessed it," Margaret Elizabeth repeated, after a
minute spent in a quick review of that talk in the summer house.

"It is not always possible, surely, to gauge a person's bank account in
the course of one conversation," her aunt suggested.

"I don't mean that; but don't you think, Aunt Eleanor, you can usually
tell very rich people? They are apt to be limited, in a way. Not always,
of course, but often. I can't explain it exactly. Perhaps it is
over-refined."

"If to be refined is to be limited, I prefer to be limited," Mrs.
Pennington remarked.

It was plain that unless Margaret Elizabeth went to the length of
retailing the whole of that Sunday morning conversation, which was out