HELEN GRANT'S SCHOOLDAYS

BOOKS BY AMANDA M. DOUGLAS

THE HELEN GRANT BOOKS

Illustrated

LOTHROP, LEE & SHEPARD CO.
BOSTON

Helen tells her dreams to the old apple tree. (Frontispiece.) Page [6].

Helen Grant's Schooldays

BY

AMANDA M. DOUGLAS

Author of "In the King's Country," "In Trust," "Larry,"
"The Kathie Stories," "Almost as Good
as a Boy," etc.

ILLUSTRATED BY AMY BROOKS

BOSTON
LOTHROP, LEE & SHEPARD CO.
Published, August, 1903
Copyright, 1903, by Lee and Shepard
All rights reserved
Helen Grant's Schooldays
Norwood Press Berwick & Smith Co.
Norwood, Mass.
U.S.A.

CONTENTS

ILLUSTRATIONS

HELEN GRANT'S SCHOOLDAYS

CHAPTER I

HELEN

It had been a great day for the children at Hope Center the closing day of school, the last of the term, the last of the week. The larger boys and girls had spent the morning decorating the "big" room, which was to be the assembly-room. At the Center they were still quite primitive. There were many old or rather elderly people very much opposed to "putting on airs." Boys and girls went to school together, but they wouldn't have called it co-education. So the main room where various meetings and occasional entertainments were held, was always known by the appellation "big."

It was very prettily trimmed with the shining sprays of "bread and butter," and wild clematis, and the platform was gay with flowers. Seats were arranged on either hand for the graduating class, and the best singers in school. There was a very good attendance. Closing day was held in as high esteem as Washington's Birthday, or Decoration Day. Christmas was only partly kept, the old Hope settlers being an offshoot of the Puritans, and the one little Episcopalian chapel had almost to fight for its Holy days.

The first three seats in the audience-room were full of children in Sunday attire. The girl graduates were in white, with various colored ribbons. The boys' habiliments had followed no especial rule. But they were a bright, happy-looking lot, taking a deep interest in what they were to do. The boys had an entertaining historical exercise. One began with a brief account of causes leading to the revolution. Another followed with the part Boston played, then New York, then Philadelphia, Virginia, and the surrender of Cornwallis; afterward, two or three patriotic songs, several recitations—two distinctly humorous—another song or two, and then Helen Grant's selection, which was "Hervé Riel," a poem she had cut from a paper, that somehow inspired her. Diplomas were then distributed, and the "Star Spangled Banner," sung by everybody, finished the exercises.

Helen was fourteen, well-grown and very well-looking, without being pretty enough to arouse anyone's envy. "A great girl for book-learning," her uncle said, while Aunt Jane declared "She didn't see but people got along just as well without so much of it. It had never done a great deal for Ad Grant."

Helen had a bright, sunny nature—well, for that matter, she had a good many sides to her nature, and no girl of fourteen has them all definite at once. Some get toned down, some flash out here and there, and those of real worth come to have a steady shining light later on. But she never could hear Aunt Jane say "Ad Grant" in the peculiar tone she used without a sharp pang. For Addison Grant was her father, that is if he was still alive, and when Aunt Jane wanted to be particularly tormenting, she was sure he was roaming the world somewhere, and forgetting that he had a child.

Sixteen years before he had come to Hope Center and taught school. A tall, thin nondescript sort of man, a college graduate, but that didn't raise him in anyone's estimation. He was queer and always working at some kind of problems, and doing bits of translating from old Latin and Greek writers, and spent his money for books that he considered of great value. Why pretty Kitty Mulford should have married him was a mystery, but why he should have taken her would have seemed a greater puzzle to intellectual people. They went to one of the larger cities, where he taught, then to another, and so on; and when Helen was seven her mother came back to the Center a hopeless invalid with consumption, and died. Mr. Grant seemed very much broken. No one knew what a trial the frivolous, childish wife had been. He was disappointed at not having a son. He had some peculiar ideas about a boy's education, and he didn't know what to do with a girl. So he left her with her aunt and uncle, and for four years sent them two hundred dollars a year for her keep. Then he went to Europe without so much as coming to say good-by, and no one had ever heard of him since.

Helen's memories of her mother were not delightful enough to build an altar to remembrance. She had fretted a good deal. When she was out of temper she slapped Helen on the shoulder, and said she was "just like her father." Helen waited on her, changed her slippers, brushed her hair, and would have made a famous nurse if the end had not come. And then the life was so different.

The Mulfords were in many respects happy-go-lucky people. Aunt Jane scolded a good deal, or rather talked in a very scolding tone. But the children came up without much governing. Once in a while Uncle Jason struck one of them with his old gray felt hat; Helen didn't remember ever seeing him have a new one, but he wore a black one on Sunday. There were five rollicking children, and one daughter grown, who was engaged to be married at seventeen. Helen ran and played and worked and sewed a little, which she hated, and studied and read everything she could get hold of. There were Sunday-school library books, some of them very good, too; there were books she borrowed, and some old ones up in the garret belonging to her father. She read these quite on the sly, for she knew she should hate to hear comments made about them, and Aunt Jane might burn them up.

Some years before she had a big rag doll that she was very fond of. It was her confidant, and wonderful stories, complaints, and wishes went into her deaf ears. 'Reely, the girl next to the two boys, wanted it, and ran away with it at every opportunity. One day they had a quarrel about it.

"It's mine!" declared Helen. "I'll hide it away. You have no business with it."

"What's that?" demanded Aunt Jane sharply. "Helen Grant, you just give that doll to 'Reely. You're too big for such nonsense! Now, 'Reely, that doll is yours, and if Helen takes it away, I'll just settle with her in a way she'll remember one while. You great baby-calf playing with dolls!"

Helen never troubled the doll after that. There was a crooked old apple-tree in the orchard, and after she had dipped into mythology she made a friend and confidant of it, read her stories to it, studied her lessons with it even in real cold weather. It was a sort of desultory education, until the last year, when Mr. Warfield came, and then Helen really found a friend worlds better than the old apple tree, though she still told it her dreams. And sometimes when the wind soughed through its branches it seemed as if she could translate what it said.

"Of course you go to the High School next year," Mr. Warfield said a week or so before school closed. "It would be such a pity for you to stop here. You have the making of a good scholar, and there is no reason why you shouldn't be a teacher. You have one admirable quality, you go so directly to the point, you are so ambitious, so in earnest, and you acquire knowledge so easily. You will make a broad-minded woman. I must say the Center people are rather narrow and self-satisfied, except the few new ones that have come in." And Mr. Warfield smiled.

Helen felt in her inner consciousness that it would be unwise to talk about the High School. And she was very busy. She was called upon to help with the ironing now. She darned all the stockings. She washed the supper dishes because Aunt Jane was tired out, and Jenny wanted to sew on her wedding outfit.

Everything had gone along very comfortably. Her white frock had a scant ruffle put on the bottom to lengthen it down, and new sleeves put in. Uncle Jason was really proud that she had to "speak a piece."

Everybody stopped to talk and discuss the exercises. The singing was pronounced first-rate. The History talk stirred up some revolutionary reminiscences among the old folks. Someone praised Helen's share in the entertainment.

"Well, I didn't just see the sense of it," declared Aunt Jane. "After all that great thing, savin' of the ships, as one may say, why didn't he ask for something worth while? Just a day to go off and see some woman——"

"She was his wife."

"And, I dare say, he had chances enough to see her. You can't tell what they are driving at in these new-fangled stories. Now there's 'Pity the sorrows of a poor old man, whose trembling limbs have borne him to your door,' and 'Columbia, Columbia, to glory arise, The Queen of the world, and the child of the skies' that children used to speak when I went to school, and you could sense them."

Mrs. Mulford repeated them as if she was reeling off so much prose, and paused out of breath. She was getting rather stout now.

"I thought it rather theatrical," said Mrs. Keen. "I didn't understand it a bit. The Searings are going to send Louise to the High School. They have it all fixed, and she's going to board with her sister through the week. Marty Pendleton's going, too. Dear me! There wa'n't any High School in my day, and I guess girls were just as smart."

Helen was with the girls in a merry crowd. Some were going away to aunts and grandmothers, and the envied one, Ella Graham, was going to the seaside, as the doctor had recommended that to her ailing mother. So they walked on, chatting, until paths began to diverge. Two roads ran through the Center, north and south, east and west. There were South Hope and North Hope, settlements that had branched out from the Center. North Hope had grown into quite a thriving town with a railroad station and several social advantages. The High School for the towns around was situated here.

"Now," began Aunt Jane, as they neared the gate and said good-by to a few who were going farther on, "now Helen, you just run in and take off your frock and that white petticoat. They'll do for Sunday. There's peas to shell and potatoes to clean, and I have to look after the chickens, and make some biscuits. After spending 'most all the day it's time you did something."

Helen drew a long breath. She wanted to go out to the old apple tree to dream and plan. But Aunt Jane didn't consider anything real work outside of housekeeping and earning money, though Helen had been up since five in the morning, and very busy with chores before she went to help adorn the schoolroom.

Sam, who had been inducted into farming two years before, was out in the field mowing with father and the man. Nathan, next in age, was most enthusiastic about the good time they had, only if there'd been a treat like a Sunday School picnic!

"Do stop!" said his mother, "I'm tired and sick of all this school stuff. Go out and bring in a good basket of wood, or you won't have any chicken potpie for supper."

Helen hung up her frock, and put on the faded gingham and a checked apron, and kept busy right along. 'Reely helped shell peas; Fan and Lou were out playing.

"It's splendid that there isn't any more school," said Fan. "We can just play and play and play."

The big girl inside was sorry enough there was no more school. Somehow Aunt Jane's voice rasped her terribly this afternoon. Two whole months of it! A shudder ran all over her.

There was a savory fragrance through the house presently. Helen tried to remember everything that went on the table, though she was repeating snatches of verses to herself. Then Jenny came up the path, stood her umbrella in the corner, gave her hat a toss that landed it on a stand under the glass, that Helen had just cleared up, and dropped into a rocking chair.

"It's been hot to-day, now I tell you;" she said. "Well, did your fandango go off to suit, Helen?"

"I shouldn't call it fandango," the girl replied.

"Oh, well, what's in a name! Now I'll bet you can't tell what smart chap said that!"

"Shakspeare."

"Did he really? I suppose it's always safe to tack his name to everything;" and Jenny laughed. The word buxom could be justly applied to her. Her two long walks, and her day in the factory, did not seem to wear on her. Her color was rather high, her eyes and hair dark, her voice untrained, and everything about her commonplace.

"Go and blow the horn," said Aunt Jane to Helen.

"Did you go, mother? Was it anything worth while?" asked the daughter.

"Oh, well, so, so. Mr. Warfield seemed very proud of his pupils. Yes, the singing was good. Harry Lane had the 'Surrender of Cornwallis', and it was just fine."

Father and Sam and the hired man came in. The two children straggled along, and Helen had to wash them, but presently they were all ranged about the table.

"Well, how did it go?" Uncle Jason asked, looking up as Helen finally took her place after doing Aunt Jane's bidding several times.

"Oh, it was splendid!" A thrill of delight swept over Helen as she met the good-humored eyes. "And I have a diploma."

"And did you carry the house by storm, or did you forget two lines in the most important place?" asked Sam, mischievously. "Dan Erlick is going to the High School in the fall. Are you?"

"O, I wish I could," cried Helen, eagerly, with a beseeching glance at her uncle. Occasionally he did decide matters.

"Well, I declare!" Aunt Jane threw back her head with her fork poised half way to her mouth, "And I dare say you'd like to go over to Europe, too!"

"I just should," said Helen with a good natured accent. "There are a great many things I should like to do."

"Where's the money coming from to do 'em?"

"I hope to earn it. I should like to teach, and Mr. Warfield thinks I ought."

"And follow in your father's steps."

Helen's face was scarlet.

"You just won't go to any High School, I can tell you," began her aunt in an arbitrary tone. "You'd look fine walking in three mile and out again every day. Who'd keep you in shoes? Or did you think you'd take the horse and wagon? You're learning enough for the kind of life you're likely to lead, and there are other things to do."

"And I'll tell you one of them, Nell," said Jenny with a rough comfort in her tone. "There will be three vacancies in the factory come September, and you better take one of them. Now I haven't been there but little more than two years, and take up my twelve dollars every two weeks. The work isn't hard. I almost think I'm a fool to get married quite so soon, only Joe does need a housekeeper, and will have the house all fixed up—and doesn't want to wait;" laughingly.

"Joe's a nice fellow," said her mother, "and well to do. And you didn't go to any High School, either."

Mrs. Mulford took great pride in her daughter's prospects, though when Joe Northrup first began to "wait on her," she said: "I don't see how you'll ever get along with old lady Northrup, and Joe won't leave his mother."

"I aint in any hurry," returned Jenny. "Joe's a good catch and worth waiting for."

In March Mrs. Northrup began to clean house and took a bad cold, and a month later was buried. Quite a sum of ready money came to Joe, and he built on a parlor room, a new wide porch, papered and painted, and Jenny felt not a little elated at her good luck. She had been steadily at work preparing for her new home, improving evenings and odd hours, for she was an industrious girl, and she declared Mrs. Northrup's old things would be a "disgrace to the folks on the ridge." These were the poorest and most inelegant people at the Center, and had somehow herded together.

"Yes, that will be a good thing for Helen," said Aunt Jane. "She's old enough to do something to earn her way. And you'll want everything new this winter, you've grown so. And if you have had any idee of High Schools and that folderol, you may just get it out of your head at once. If you'd a fortune it would be more to the purpose, but a girl——"

"It would be too far for her to walk," said Uncle Jason, warding off a reference to her father as he saw tears in Helen's eyes. "Mother, this is a tip-top potpie. You do beat the Dutch!"

"And I never went to school a day after I was twelve. I've kept a house and helped save and had six children of my own and Helen, and none of 'em have gone in rags. And there's Kate Weston, who's secretary of something over to North Hope, and who paints on chiny, and see what a house she keeps!"

"You can have lots of learning, and if it isn't of the right sort it won't do you much good," said Jenny sententiously. "There's a girl in the factory who was at boarding school two years. She's twenty and she never earns over four dollars a week, and if I didn't know more than she does—well I'd go in a convent!"

Some other topics came up, and after dinner Sam went to milk, the hired man to care for the stock, Aunt Jane took the big rocking chair and settled herself to a few winks of sleep, as was her custom, and the walk of to-day had fatigued her more than usual. Helen and 'Reely cleared the table. Jenny sat down to the sewing machine and hemmed yards of ruffling for her various purposes. Then Helen put Fan and little Tom to bed, and sat a while out on the porch, thinking, strangely sore at heart.

She had not considered the subject seriously. It had been an ardent desire to go on studying. She had just reached the place where knowledge was fascinating to a girl of her temperament. Mr. Warfield had roused the best in her and she had, as it were, skipped over the years and seen herself just where she would like to be, able to travel, to make friends, to have books and the pictures she loved. She had not seen many that she cared for, until one day Mr. Warfield brought a portfolio of prints he admired, and she was so touched that she sat in a breathless thrill of joy with her eyes full of tears.

"Oh, I did not know there were such beautiful things in the world," she said with a sob in her breath. "And that people could really make them! How wonderful it must be to do something the whole world can enjoy."

He smiled kindly. "The world is large," he replied, "and if only a little circle commends us, that must satisfy the most of us. And perhaps you know people who would rather have a bright chromo of fruit or flowers than all of these."

"Yes," she admitted with a flush.

"But in everything it is worth while to try to come up to the best within us."

This sentence lingered in her mind. But she was a very busy girl for the next two weeks, for there was a good deal to do at home. Then she was not old enough to have outgrown play. Girls really played in country places round about.

But some new thing was growing up within her. There comes a dividing line in many lives when the soul awakens and reaches up and seems suddenly to sweep past the old things, just as the bud pushes out of its sheath that then becomes a dry husk. So many desires crept up to the light. Study, languages, histories of men and women, and deeds that had changed the aspect of the world. Travel, a life of her own in which she was first, not in any selfish fashion, but to have things peculiarly her own, the things that appealed to her, not other people's ideas of what was best for you. She had had some of Jenny's frocks made over for her, and had been wearing Jenny's coat all winter. Aurelia was too small to make these changes economical, and Mrs. Mulford was one of the thrifty kind that believed in putting everything to the best use. Yet Helen longed for the time when second-hand clothes and ideas were no longer forced upon you, but you could come into some of your very own.

She thought she would go up to her own room and have a good cry. Just as she reached the door Aunt Jane said: "Yes, she's old enough now to go to work. It's a good idea."

"I'll speak to Mr. Brown and engage the place for her. After a fortnight, if she pays any sort of attention she'll get three dollars a week, for she's quick to see into things."

"Yes, if she settles her mind to them. Dear me! I hope she won't turn out trifling and inefficient like her father. She's got his eyes, only they're more wide awake. And when a girl has to do for herself, the sooner she begins the better. I'd reckoned on setting her to do something this fall, for there's 'Reely to work in the odds and ends; I always did say I wouldn't bring up a lot of shiftless girls, and I'll do my duty by her if she isn't altogether mine."

Helen went round to the side entrance and slipped upstairs. Fan and 'Reely slept in the big bed. There was a jog in the room and Helen's cot was here. She threw off her clothes and crept into bed, and cried with her whole soul in revolt. What right had anyone to order another's life, to put one in hard and distasteful places! She had never thought of the factory before, indeed she had never thought much of the future. For most healthy energetic girls the present is sufficient, and to Aunt Jane it was everything. Children were to do to-day's work, there was no fear but there would be enough to fill up to-morrow when it came.

To go in the factory when Mr. Warfield had said she could make a teacher! To miss three years in the High School, three splendid satisfying years, to miss the wonderful knowledges of the wide, beautiful world when she had just come to know what a few leaves of them were like. No wonder she cried with a girl's passionate disappointment. No wonder she saw possibilities in the enchanted future and was confident of reaching them if she could be allowed.

CHAPTER II

AN EXCURSION TO HOPE

Helen was up at five the next morning. They were early risers in the summer time at the Mulfords', except Fan and little Tom. Mrs. Mulford didn't want young ones about bothering, when they could be no sort of use. Mr. Mulford had quoted the advantage of good habits, and that you never could begin too soon.

"When I have need of their habits I'll see that they have 'em," she replied with a confident nod. "Plenty of sleep is good for 'em."

Helen and 'Reely had reached the period of "habits." Mrs. Mulford always called out sharply at five o'clock.

Oh, what a beautiful world it was! Over east was a chain of high hills, blue in the morning light, except where the sun struck them. They seemed part of another world. Between were bits of woodland, meadows, orchards and the creek that was laid down on the State map as a river, but no one called it that. Nearer was a cluster of houses, two or three factories stretching out to South Hope and the railroad station. Oh, why were beautiful things always so far off?

She hurried on her gown and twisted up her hair in a knot. It was a faded cambric of last summer, rather short in the skirt for such a large girl, but then it was pretty well worn out. She helped with the breakfast, she laid out the dainties for Jenny's lunch, she ran to do things for Uncle Jason, the world was just full of odds and ends jumbled together. She wondered why people had to eat so much. Why hadn't they been made so one meal a day would suffice?

Jenny took her little lunch satchel and trudged on with a cheerful good-morning. Nearly a mile to walk, and then to work all day in the hot stuffy place full of unfragrant smells, and the gossip about beaus and what was going to be the fashion, and perhaps unfriendly comments or common teasing jokes. That was what they talked about when they came to see Jenny. They were no great readers, these girls. And was her lot to be cast with them? Oh, had school days really come to an end? She had known their worth such a little while, only during the last year, the last three months she might say. School was a period everyone went through, but now, to her it had unfolded its magical labyrinth, and she wanted to roam there forever. Yet though she had shed bitter tears last night, she did not feel at all like crying now. An exultant life seemed throbbing within her.

"Now, Helen, you just go upstairs and sweep, and look out for the corners when you wipe up, and shake the mats out good and hard. See how quick you can get through."

Aunt Jane always said this Saturday morning. "Just as if I couldn't remember when I've done it for two years," Helen thought, but she made no reply. She worked away with her mind on a dozen other things, and her work was well done, too.

The great oven was heated on Saturday, an old-fashioned brick oven. Pies and cake and bread, and a big jar full of beans went in it to come out done to perfection. And the towels and handkerchiefs and stockings were washed on that day, it saved so much from Monday's work. Nathan and 'Reely weeded in the garden, then peeled apples for sauce, and picked raspberries to can, making what Aunt Jane called a clean sweep of them. Dinner again for a hungry host.

"I'm going over to Hope this afternoon," said Uncle Jason, "I s'pose there's some butter ready to take. Now what do you want?"

"Oh, my! What I don't want would be less. Some of that green and white gingham, spools of thread, shirting muslin good and stout, and Jenny said if anyone went over there was a list of things she wanted. It's in her machine drawer."

"Oh, I never can look after so much. Come mother, go along yourself."

"On Sat'day afternoon! Jason Mulford!"

"Well you can't go on Sunday," and he laughed.

"Yes, I could go over to church on Sunday," she retorted sharply. "Thank the Lord there's one day you don't have to cook from morning to night, though like the old Israelites you have to do a double portion on Sat'day. Dear me, I sometimes wished we lived on manna."

"What is manna?" inquired 'Reely.

"Bread and honey," said her father.

"No, twan't bread and honey either. Jason, why do you say such things! It's what the children of Israel had to live on forty years in the wilderness, and they got mighty tired of it too. It's my opinion, 'Reely Mulford, you'd rather have bread and cake and potpie and baked beans and berries and such."

'Reely stared with her big brown eyes.

"And—didn't they have any——"

"You're big enough to read the Bible, 'Reely. When I was twelve I had read it all through, except the chapters with the names which mother said didn't count. But we didn't have Sunday school books then, and that was all there was to read on Sunday."

Helen thought everything that happened to Aunt Jane happened before she was twelve. She had made her father some shirts, she had pieced several quilts, made bread and cake and spun on the little wheel and could do a week's washing.

"Well, about Hope?" They seldom said North Hope, or tacked Hope on to the Center.

"Oh, I couldn't go."

"Well, I can't get all those things. See here, let Helen go."

Aunt Jane looked at her. Helen knew by experience that to want a thing very much was a sure way of being denied, so she merely went to the machine drawer and brought the list Jenny had written out, in which were several mispelled words.

"O Lordy!" ejaculated Uncle Jason.

"Before all these children too! No one would think you were a church member, Jason," said his wife severely.

"Well, if you want all them things you'll have to send Helen along to remember. An' I dunno's I have time."

Uncle Jason rose from the table. So did the hired man and Sam. Helen picked up the list and put it back in the drawer, brought the cloth to wash Tom's hands and began to pile up the dishes, her heart in a tumult of desire.

"Jason, what time you going?"

"'Bout two. I've got to see Warren at three. And isn't there butter to take over?"

"Yes, to Mrs. Dayton. Well—I think it is best to send Helen. Now, Helen, you wash up the dishes quick and do it well, too. Then wash yourself and dress. You know it puts Uncle Jason out to wait, he hasn't the longest temper in the world."

Helen was both quick and deft. Aunt Jane took the credit of this to her own training, but there was an instinctive delicacy in the girl that made her wish she had finer and prettier dishes to wash. She did not truly despise the work so much. She really loved to read advertisements of fine china and glass, Berlin and Copenhagen wares, Wedgewood and Limoges, and hunted them up in the big school dictionary.

She was standing on the porch five minutes before two, a wholesome, happy-looking girl with two braids of light brown hair, tied together half-way down with a brown ribbon, and some wavy little ends about her forehead that would curl when they were wet. Her straw hat had a wreath of rather soiled daisies that sun and showers had not refreshed, but her blue cambric with white bands looked fresh and nice, though it had been made from Jenny's skirt, turned the other side out. Aunt Jane had made her add her wants to the list, so she wouldn't forget a single thing. The butter was a nice roll wrapped in a cloth and shut tight in an immaculate tin pail.

With many charges they started off.

"I wish mother'd learn there wan't any sense in fussin so much, but land! I suppose people are as they grow. Mebbe they can't help it."

"But if one tried? Isn't it like learning other things, or unlearning them?"

"Well—no, I guess not. You see all these habits and things are inside of one, born with him or her as you might say, while the book learning is just—well determination I s'pose. And so's farming."

That wasn't very lucid.

"But if you found some better way of farming."

"There aint many better ways. Keep your ground light and free from weeds and fertilize and get the best seed and then keep at it."

"And if you do a wrong or foolish thing, try not to repeat it."

"That's about it. But folks are mighty sot in their opinions, and hate to change. If I find a better way I take it up. Land! We couldn't farm in some things as people did a hundred year ago."

There was a splendid row of shade trees on the road to North Hope, mostly maples, but here and there an elm or a chestnut. There were farms and gardens, and old settlers who did not want any change. Then the railroad had established business lines outside the Center, while that had hardly changed in fifty years. But it kept a quaint beauty of its own. Here and there was an old well sweep, then a long line of stone wall covered with Virginia creeper or clematis. And then a tall row of hollyhocks in all colors, or great sunflowers with their buds stretching out of close coverts. It was so tranquil that the tired girl lapsed into a kind of dreamy content. She used to think in later years this was a sort of turning point in her life, and yet she had no presentiment.

"Now the thing you better do, Helen," said her uncle, "is to get out here and go straight over Main Street and do your tradin'. Land sakes! I wouldn't look up those forty botherin' things for a handful of money. I'll drive round and leave the butter, and then you go to Mrs. Dayton's when you're through. I may be a little belated. Be sure now you don't forget anything."

Helen sprang out, holding her satchel with its precious contents very tightly. The stores were really quite showy, and on Saturday afternoon everybody who could, went out. She met some of her schoolmates. Ella Graham and her mother were buying pretty articles for their sea-side trip. Many were just looking. The day was not so very hot, indeed now it began to cloud over a little, just enough to soften the atmosphere.

She kept studying the list. She couldn't match the edging, but she took two samples that were nearest to it, and she couldn't find the peculiar blue shade of sewing silk. She made believe now and then, that she was ordering some of the lovely lawns and cambrics, and that she didn't have to consider whether they would wash well, and how they would get made. She chose ribbons and laces to trim them with. And oh, the pretty hats, the fresh crisp flowers!

Then she made a sudden pause. Finery went out of her head. A book and picture store, and in the very front, the post of honor, a most exquisite Mother and Child—the Bodenhausen Madonna.

Mr. Warfield had two or three in his collection, and the Sistine Madonna had gone to her heart. But this child with his mother's eyes, and the tender clinging love as if he was afraid some hand might wrest him from his mother's clasp, the love unutterable in both faces filled her with a wordless admiration. It seemed as if she could stand there forever, as if all her longings were lost in this rapture.

Presently she summoned courage to go in and inquire about it. A modern Madonna by a young German, a new thought of divine motherhood. It was a very fine photograph, framed, and the price was fifteen dollars.

Of course she had no more thought of buying it than of the lawns and laces. But she was very glad she had seen it. Sometime there might be a new world for her, where she could have a few of these lovely things. She must descend to gingham and shirting muslin.

Then she hurried on to Mrs. Dayton's. Uncle Jason had not come. There was a very fine old lady sitting on the porch in a silken gown with ruffles and laces, a heavy golden chain drooping about her waist, a large diamond flashing at her throat and smaller ones in her ears; while her fingers were jeweled to the last degree. But oh, how wrinkled she was, and her hair was threaded with white, while her eyes seemed almost faded out.

Helen went around to the side entrance. Mrs. Dayton was arranging the table for supper. A very pleasant, plump, amiable woman of middle-life in a white gown, almost covered with a big apron.

"Why Helen Grant! Aren't you tired to death with those bundles? Sit down and get a breath. Your uncle said you would come. Take off your hat. You're just in time to have a bit of supper. Mr. Mulford said you were sent to do a lot of shopping. How did you make out?"

"Oh, very well, I think. You see I did not have to use my taste or judgment, it was all mapped out for me," smiling. "I was afraid I should be late."

"Oh, your uncle said it would be near seven when he came. And it is only quarter past six. Now take off your hat and fan yourself cool, and in five minutes I'll call the folks. They haven't all come yet. The Disbrowes get here to-night. I heard you quite distinguished yourself at school! You take learning from your father's side. The Mulford genius does not run in that channel."

Mrs. Dayton gave a pleasant smile. There was no malice in her speech. Helen colored a little under the praise.

"Pity you don't live nearer so that you could come in to the High School."

"Oh, I wish I could. I love to study. And there are so many splendid things in the world that one would like to know."

"What are you going to do with yourself?"

Ah, it was not what she wanted to do. The tears suddenly softened her eyes.

"Oh, Helen, an idea has just come to me." Mrs. Dayton had been putting some last touches to the table and paused at the corner with a glass in her hand, studying the girl with comprehensive interest. "I suppose you meant to stay at home during vacation and help your Aunt? But Aurelia's getting a big girl and there are so many of you. I wonder if you wouldn't like to come over here and help me, and get paid for it? Why, I think you'd just suit. Did you see that old lady sitting on the front porch? That's Mrs. Van Dorn. She was here last summer. She had a companion then, a real nice girl about twenty, that she had sort of adopted. She has no end of money and is queer and full of whims. She wants to go to Europe in the fall and spend the winter in France. She travels all over. But the girl, Miss Gage, didn't want to go."

"Oh, dear, you don't mean"—Helen stopped and colored scarlet, and her breath came in bounds.

"That you should go in her place? Oh; no, you can't indulge in such luxuries just yet. Miss Gage finally consented on condition that she could spend the summer with her folks on Long Island. There's quite a family of them, and they seem to care a good deal for each other. Mrs. Van Dorn wants someone to run up and down for her, read to her, fan her sometimes and go out driving with her. She doesn't get up until after eight, and has coffee, fruit, and rolls brought up to her room. And she's a great hand for flowers—her vases must be washed out and filled every day. Then she comes down on the porch, wants the paper read to her and likes to talk over things. After dinner she takes a nap. Then she goes for a drive. They used to take a book along last summer, she's as fond of poetry as any young girl. Mr. Warfield said you were the finest reader of poetry in the school. And what I'm driving at is that I do believe you could suit her, and I'd like someone to help me out a little when I'm rushed. Joanna's good, but one pair of hands can't do everything. I asked Mary Cross to come over and read, but she drones, and she can't bear poetry. And I've been thinking who I could find. You see it isn't like a maid. Miss Gray, the nurse, comes in every morning and gives her massage and all that. She's smart enough to help herself and hates to be thought old. Now, if you could come and help both, and earn a little money? It would be three dollars a week, and no real hard work."

"Oh!" cried Helen in a fervor of delight that made her absolutely faint at heart.

Joanna opened the door. "Haven't you rung the bell?" she asked in surprise.

"I declare!" Mrs. Dayton laughed and rang it at once. Joanna brought in the soup tureen and stood it on the side table.

"We will finish the talk by and by," the mistress said.

The boarders came in. Mr. and Mrs. Pratt, Mrs. Lessing and her daughters, Mr. Conway and Mrs. Van Dorn. When the Disbrowes arrived the house would be filled.

"This is my young friend Miss Helen Grant," announced Mrs. Dayton, and she gave the girl a seat beside her. Mrs. Van Dorn was next.

Helen enjoyed it so much. The spotless cloth with its fern leaves and wild roses, the small bowl of flowers at each end of the table, the shining silver, and Joanna's quiet serving. The guests talked in low, pleasant tones. At home there was always a din and a clatter and two or three children talking at once, a coarse and generally soiled table cloth, and Aunt Jane scolding one and another. And there was always a slop of some kind.

After the soup came the dinner proper; roast chicken and cold boiled ham cut in thin slices, not chunks. What a luscious pinky tint it had. And the vegetables had a dainty tempting aspect. The table service was delicately decorated porcelain, but it seemed rare china to the girl. What lovely living this was!

Helen possessed a certain kind of adaptiveness. Aunt Jane would have called it "putting on airs." She made no blunders, she answered the few questions addressed to her, in a quiet tone, for she did not have to shout to be heard over the din of children.

There was dessert and fruit, not so much more than they were used to having at home, for the Mulford's were good livers. Afterward the boarders sauntered out on the porch or the lawn seats, where the gentlemen smoked.

"Now you've seen Mrs. Van Dorn, and she isn't so very formidable, is she? Sometimes she is very amiable, but I suppose few of us keep that even tenor of the way so much talked about. And there are queer people all over the world."

"Whoa, Betty, whoa! You'll get home to your supper presently," exclaimed a well-known voice, as wheels announced the approaching vehicle.

Mrs. Dayton and Helen went out. Mr. Mulford thought first he couldn't stop a minute, it was late. But the hostess explained that she had something very important to talk over, and he could have his supper while he was listening.

He demurred a little, but finally assented. Mrs. Dayton brought him a tempting plateful, and then unfolded her plan which had shaped itself definitely in this brief while. She would come over Monday afternoon, meanwhile he was to prepare the way for her.

"Well, that does beat me! Why Helen, you've struck luck! I don't see how mother can make any real objection, though she'll fuss at first. That's her way. And as you say ma'am we've a houseful at home, Helen ought to be mighty obliged to you."

Helen caught Mrs. Dayton's hand and pressed it against her cheek in a mute caress.

"And now we must start off home. Oh, Helen, here's a letter for you. Come, you're too young for that sort of work," and her uncle laughed.

She lingered in the door-way opening it. Mr. Warfield had to go away before he had expected, but he begged her to take the High School examination and see how she stood. When he returned they would talk the matter over. It would be such a pity for her to stop here. He sent a list of questions for her to study out.

They hurried off home, and Betty was nothing loth. Uncle Jason said he would lay the matter before mother to-morrow. Helen better not say anything.

"And you'll be so fine riding out every day, and keeping company with big bugs that I don't see how you'll ever get back to us again. Mebbe you won't. The High School may be next step."

She squeezed Uncle Jason's arm in a sort of transport. A shadowy thought like this had crossed her brain.

Aunt Jane was out on the doorstep with some of the younger children.

"Well, you have come at last, after keeping one on tenterhooks and supper warmed up and got cold again, and no one knowing whether you were thrown out and killed or waylaid——"

"There mother, nothing happened except that Warren fellow went off and I waited and waited for him. I was bound to get my note. And we had supper at Mrs. Dayton's. I sent Helen there to wait for me."

"Oh, Helen—we couldn't think! Did you get the things? If you'd lost my money—" and Jenny made a threatening pause.

"I didn't lose anything." Helen began to unpack her satchel on the cleanest end of the dining table. "I found everything but the lace and the blue sewing silk, and Mr. Morris is going to order them by mail. He sent some samples of lace in case he couldn't find the exact match."

"But it's got to match," returned Jenny in a positive tone. "And I did want that blue silk to finish my stitching Monday night. If you'd come home early with it I could have finished it to-night. H'm, h'm," opening the parcel and nodding. "Mrs. Dayton got her house full? And what did you see nice? Have prices gone down any, but I s'pose its hardly time! And was the style out in their best? Are they wearing ruffles on skirts or just plain? And are they real scant? Dear me! I haven't been over to North Hope in a dog's age."

Helen didn't remember about skirts except that Mrs. Van Dorn's light silk had a beautiful black lace flounce. And the Madonna was still plain before her eyes.

"Well you are stupid enough," cried Jenny in disgust. "I think I'd used my eyes to a better purpose. And you didn't even bring home any fashion-papers!"

Mr. and Mrs. Mulford were still having a little bickering on the stoop. Then she came in, examined the gingham and the muslin, sent the children to bed, told Helen to take the things off the table, and said she was tired to death, and that no one ever thought about her, or cared whether they kept her up till midnight.

Helen was very glad to get away to bed, and live over the meal at Mrs. Dayton's, with its ease and refinement. How could she help building air-castles when youth is so rich in imagination, and hope is boundless! And if one unlooked-for thing happened, might not another?

CHAPTER III

AIR CASTLES WITH FOUNDATIONS

Aunt Jane said Helen must stay home from church Sunday morning, and help with the dinner. Joe Northrup and two cousins were coming to visit. In the afternoon all the younger portion went to Sunday School, and the little leisure Helen had afterward was devoted to reading aloud their library books. And when she came down Monday morning, Aunt Jane said in her brisk, authoritative fashion:

"Now, Helen, you fly 'round and get at the washing. See if you can't learn something useful in vacation. A big girl like you ought to know how to do 'most everything. I washed when I had to stand up on a stool to reach the washboard."

Considering that for the last two months Helen had helped with the washing before school time, and had often run every step of the way because she was late, the request did not strike her as pertaining strictly to vacation. She went about her work cheerily. Uncle Jason had whispered in her ear, "Don't you worry. I guess it will all come out right."

Then the clothes were folded down, and after clearing the dinner away, Helen began to iron. Aunt Jane dropped on the old lounge and took her forty winks, then changed her gown, put on a clean white apron, which Helen knew was for company, and the thought added to her blitheness. Between three and four Mrs. Dayton drove up in the coupé with Mrs. Van Dorn, who continued her journeying around. The Mulfords' front-yard was rather pretty, with two borders of various flowers in bloom, and, as the younger children had gone over to the woods, it was quiet and serene all about. Helen glanced out of the side window, and gave thanks for the decent appearance of the place.

The conversation seemed to be not altogether dispassionate. She heard Aunt Jane raise her voice, and talk in her dogmatic manner. Oh! what if she couldn't go! She clasped her hot hands up to her face, and the iron stood there on the cloth and scorched, a thing Aunt Jane made a fuss about.

Truth to tell, Mrs. Mulford had two minds pulling her in opposite directions. It would just spoil Helen to go. She would hate working in the shop afterward. She would be planning all the time to get to the High School. She knew enough for ordinary girls. She would have to work for her living, and she couldn't spend three years getting ready. There was a little feeling, also, that she didn't want Helen any nicer or finer than her own girls. They had a father who could help them along. Helen hadn't. And if education shouldn't do more for her than it had for her father!

But there was the money, and any kind of work that made actual money was a great thing in Mrs. Mulford's estimation. Nine or ten weeks. Twenty-seven or thirty dollars!

"You see, I'd counted on giving Helen a good training in housework this vacation. When girls go to school they aint good for much that way. And 'long in October she's going in the shop, and then she won't have much chance to learn. An' I d' know as it'll be a good thing for her to spend her time readin' novels an' settin' 'round dreamin' and moonin'."

"She'll read a good deal beside novels. Mrs. Van Dorn is a very intelligent woman, and keeps up to the times. She has all the magazines, and the fine weekly papers, and she knows more of what is going on in the big world than most of the men. Then Helen would assist me in many things. Oh! I would see that she'd learn something useful every day," Mrs. Dayton declared, with a bright smile.

"Then she aint fixed up. She's outgrown most of her clothes, an' I'd 'lotted on having her sew some. She can run the machine, and I don't believe in girls who can't do any sewing. I'd be ashamed to bring up one so helpless. Here's my Jenny making most of her weddin' things. We don't count on having a dressmaker till the last, to put on the finishing touches."

"About the clothes," began Mrs. Dayton in a persuasive tone, "I have two or three lawn dresses that would make over nicely for Helen. And you know I did quite a bit of dressmaking through Mr. Dayton's long illness. And there's my machine. She would have some time to sew. Oh, you could depend on me not to let her waste her time."

Mrs. Dayton had certainly been a thrifty woman, if it was on higher lines than anything Mrs. Jason aspired to. She had money in the bank, beside getting her house clear.

Aunt Jane's arguments seemed over-ruled in such a pleasant yet decisive manner that she began to feel out-generaled. Uncle Jason had said yesterday, "You'd better let her go. If they wanted her in the shop right away you'd send her. So what's the difference!"

"There's a great deal of difference," she answered sharply, but she couldn't quite explain it. For Helen the three dollars a week really won the day. Aunt Jane tried to stand out for the rest of the week, but Mrs. Dayton said she would come over on Wednesday, and she knew she could fix Helen up, without a bit of trouble.

"Don't let her fool away her money," said Aunt Jane. "You'd better keep it until the end of the month."

Mrs. Dayton nodded and rose. The carriage was coming slowly up the road.

Aunt Jane did not go out in the kitchen, but upstairs, and looked over Helen's wardrobe. A white frock, a cambric, blue, with white dots, and a seersucker, trimmed with bands of blue. Then, there was the striped white skirt of Jenny's she meant to make over. They could do that to-morrow. She could conjure some of it out before supper-time, and put in the shirts and collars, though at fourteen Helen ought to know how to iron them. She would forget all she had learned. It really wasn't the thing to let her go.

Helen went on ironing. 'Reely's white frock fell to her share; indeed, it seemed as if 'most everything did to-day. She was hot and tired, and, oh! if she could not go!

"I don't see why those young ones don't come back. 'Reely hasn't a bit more sense than Fan. She needs a good trouncing, and she'll get it, too. You leave off, Helen, and shell them beans; they ought to have been on half an hour ago. And lay the two slices of ham in cold water to draw out some of the salt; then the potatoes. I'll iron."

She did not ask, and Aunt Jane did not proffer her decision. Helen feared it was adverse, then she recalled the fact that Aunt Jane always told the unpleasant things at once. Ill tidings with her never lagged. So she took heart of hope again. Then there were raspberries to pick. And supper, and children scolded and threatened.

"Well?" said Uncle Jason inquiringly.

"She was here, but I haven't just made up my mind. She'll be here Wednesday."

"Whew!" ejaculated Uncle Jason.

She went down the garden path to meet Jenny, who took the shortest way across lots.

"I'm goin' to sleep on it," she said, after she had told Jenny.

"But you'll let her go! Why, it would be foolish!"

"I s'pose I shall. But I'll keep her on tenter hooks to-night. Right down to the bottom I don't approve of it. She'll be planning all summer to get to that High School. Three years is too much to throw away when you're dependent on other folks."

So Helen had to go to bed unsatisfied, for Uncle Jason wouldn't be waylaid.

"I've cut you a frock out of that striped muslin of Jenny's," Aunt Jane announced, the next morning. "Sew up the seams, and put in the hem, and then I'll fix the waist."

Aunt Jane was "handy," as many country women have to be.

"You were mighty close about that business of Sat'day afternoon," Aunt Jane flung out when she could no longer contain herself. "I s'pose it don't make much difference whether you go or not?"

"Oh, I should like to go." Helen's voice was unsteady. "But Mrs. Dayton told Uncle Jason to talk it over with you, and then she would come and see you, and he said—that it would be as—as—and it seemed as if I hadn't much to do with it until——"

"Well, I've decided to let you go and try. They may not like you. Rich old women are generally queer and finicky, and don't keep one mind hardly a week at a time. So it's doubtful if you stay. Then it is a good deal like being a servant, and none of the Mulfords ever lived out, as far as I've heard."

Helen colored. She had not thought of that aspect. Neither had she considered that her dream might come to an untimely end.

"And it seems a shame to waste the whole summer when there's so much to do."

"But if they had wanted me in the shop you would have let me go, wouldn't you?" Helen said in a tone that she tried hard to keep from being pert.

"That would have been different. A steady job for years, and getting higher wages all the time. I've told Jenny to engage the chance."

Years in a shop, doing one thing over and over! She recalled a sentence she had heard Mr. Warfield quote several times from an English writer, "But that one man should die ignorant who had a capacity for knowledge, this I call tragedy!" She was not very clear in her own mind as to what tragedy really was, but if one had a capacity for wider knowledge, would it not be tragedy to spend years doing what one loathed? She hated the smells of the shoe shop, the common air that seemed to envelop everyone, the loud voices and boisterous laughs. And she wouldn't mind helping someone for her board, and going to the High School. Why, she did a great deal of work here, but it seemed nothing to Aunt Jane.

The frock was finished, and she washed it out, starched it, and would iron it to-morrow morning. Then there were stockings to mend, although the two younger boys went barefoot around the farm. And she worked up to the very moment the carriage turned up the bend in the road, when she ran and dressed herself while Aunt Jane packed the old valise. The children stood around.

"Oh, Mis' Dayton, can't I come some day?" cried Fanny. "How long are you going to keep Helen?"

"Till she gets tired and homesick," was the reply.

A smile crossed Helen's lips and stayed there, softening her face wonderfully.

They shouted out their good-bys, and asked their mother a dozen questions, receiving about as many slaps in return. For the remainder of the day, Mrs. Jason was undeniably cross.

"That girl'll turn out just like her father," she said to Jenny. "She hasn't a bit of gratitude."

"And I hope the old woman will be as queer as they make them," returned Jenny with a laugh.

In the few years of her life, Helen had never been visiting, to stay away over night. This was like some of the stories she had read and envied the heroine. There was a small alcove off Mrs. Dayton's room, with a curtain stretched across. For now the house was really full, except one guest chamber. There was a closet for her clothes just off the end of the short hall, that led to the back stairs, which ran down to the kitchen, a spacious orderly kitchen, good enough to live in altogether, Helen thought.

She helped to take the dishes out to Joanna, and begged to wipe them for her.

"If you're not heavy handed," said Joanna, a little doubtful.

"Or butter-fingered," laughed Helen. "That's what we say at home. But these dishes are so lovely that it is like—well it's like reading verses after some heavy prose."

"I'm not much on verses," replied Joanna, watching her new help warily. She did work with a dainty kind of touch.

Mrs. Dayton came, and stood looking at them with a humorous sort of smile.

"She knows how to wipe dishes," said Joanna, nodding approvingly.

"It is a good deal to suit Joanna. No doubt she will excuse you this time from wiping pots and pans, and you may come out of doors with me."

The lawn—they called it that here at North Hope—presented a picturesque aspect. A party were playing croquet. Mrs. Disbrowe was walking her twenty-months'-old little girl up and down the path. Mrs. Van Dorn sat in a wicker rocking chair that had a hood over the top to shield her from the air. Her silk gown flowed around gracefully, and her hands were a sparkle of rings.

"Oh, how sweet the air is," said Helen. "There's sweet-clover somewhere, and when the dew falls it is so delightful."

"They have it in the next-door lawn and the mower was run over it awhile ago."

Helen drew long delicious breaths. No noisy children, and the soft laughs, the gay talk was like music to her. She walked across the porch.

"Mrs. Dayton said you were fond of reading aloud," began Mrs. Van Dorn. "Your voice is nice and smooth."

"Your voice is like your father's, Helen! I had not remarked it before. Only it is a girl's voice," Mrs. Dayton commented.

"I am glad it suggests his," exclaimed Helen with a pleasurable thrill.

"Where is your father?" asked Mrs. Van Dorn.

"He is dead," said Mrs. Dayton. "Both father and mother are dead."

"I was an orphan, too," continued Mrs. Van Dorn. "And I had no near relatives. It is a sorrowful lot."

"Helen has had good friends, relatives."

"That's a comfort. I heard, we all did, that you were one of the best speakers at the closing of school. It was in the paper."

"Oh, was it?" Helen's eyes glowed with gratification.

"Yes. So Mrs. Dayton suggested you might be as good as some grown-up body. That was Robert Browning's poem you recited."

"It is a splendid poem," cried Helen enthusiastically. "You can see it all; the squadron—what was left of it after the battle—and the 'brief and bitter debate,' and the order to blow up the vessels on the beach. And then Hervé Riel, just a sailor, stepping out and making his daring proposal, and going 'safe through shoal and rock!' Oh, how the captain must have stood breathless! And the English coming too late! I'm glad someone put it in stirring verse."

Helen paused with a scarlet face. She never talked this way to anyone except Mr. Warfield.

"Yes," said Mrs. Van Dorn, "I have seen the man who wrote it, talked with him and his lovely wife, who wrote verses quite as beautiful. I think you like stirring poems," in a half inquiry.

"Yes, I do," she replied tremulously, and in her girlish enthusiasm she thought she could have fallen down at the feet of the man who wrote Hervé Riel. She never had thought of his being an actual living man.

"And do you know Macaulay's 'Horatius'?"

"Oh, I don't know very much—only the poems in the reading books, and a few that Mr. Warfield had. I know most of Longfellow."

"The Center is rather behind the towns around, although it is the oldest part; settled more than a hundred years ago. But it is largely farms. The railroad passed it by some fifteen years ago, and the stations have improved rapidly. Why, we have quite a library here, and the High School for more than a half the county," explained Mrs. Dayton.

"It's not as pretty as this Hope. And the range of hills to the northeast—I suppose you call them mountains—and the river, add so much to it."

"And we have only a little creek that empties into Piqua River, and a pond in a low place, that we skate on in the winter," said Helen rather mirthfully. "I can't help wondering what the ocean is like, and the great lakes, and Niagara Falls, and the Mississippi River with all its mouths emptying into the Gulf of Mexico. And the Amazon, and the Andes."

Helen put her head down suddenly, and pressed her lips on the jewelled hand.—Page 55.

"And Europe, and the Alps, and the lovely lakes, and the Balkans, and the Gulf of Arabia, and India, and the Himalayas, and Japan——"

"Oh, dear, what a grand world!" exclaimed Helen, when Mrs. Van Dorn paused. "I don't suppose anyone has ever seen it all," and her tone was freighted with regret.

"I have seen a good deal of it. I have been round the world, and lived in many foreign cities."

"Oh! oh!" Helen put her head down suddenly and pressed her lips on the jeweled hand. The unconscious and impulsive homage touched the old heart.

"And people who have done wonderful things, who have painted pictures, and made beautiful statues, and built bridges and churches and palaces," the girl assumed.

"Most of them were built before my time, hundreds of years ago. But I have been in a great many of them."

"And seen the Queen!"

"If you mean Queen Victoria, yes. And other queens as well. And the Empress of the French when she had her beauty and her throne."

"Oh, dear!" sighed Helen with a long breath. And Aunt Jane had called her a queer old woman; Aunt Jane, who had never even been to New York.

It was getting too dark to play croquet. Mrs. Disbrowe had gone in some time ago with her baby in her arms, and somehow it had suggested the Madonna picture to Helen. The gentlemen smoked and talked. Then Mrs. Van Dorn rose and bade them good-night, and pressed Helen's hand.

"I think I shall like your little girl very much," she said to Mrs. Dayton, in the hall. "She's modest and not at all dull."

Mrs. Van Dorn stepped off, as if she was still at middle life. She was wonderfully well preserved, but then, for almost forty years she had taken the best of care of herself. She wouldn't have admitted to anyone that she was past eighty. Sometimes in her travels she had a maid, often when she was abroad she had both a maid and a man. For two years she had been traveling about her own country, and seeing the changes.

Yet her life had not been set in rose leaves in her youth. She had worked hard, had a lover who jilted her for a girl not half as pretty but rich. And when she was thirty-five, a rich old man married her, and gave her a lovely home; then, ten years afterward, left her a rich widow, and told her to have the best time she could. If she could only have had one little girl! She thought she would adopt one, but the child with the lovely face had some mean traits, and she provided for her elsewhere. She traveled, she met entertaining people; she liked refined society; she acquired a good deal of knowledge with her pleasure.

But to grow old! And one had to some time. At ninety perhaps. What did Ninon de l'Enclos do, and Madame Recamier? Plenty of fresh air, as much exercise as she could stand, bathing and massage, cheerfulness, keeping in touch with the world of to-day, and once-in-a-while a long, quiet rest, and early to bed as she was doing here. Ah! if one could be set back twenty years even, twenty real years, and have all that much longer to live!

The child's admiration had touched her. It was not for her diamonds and emeralds, for her Chantilly lace, nor for the fact that she had money enough to buy costly things. Helen Grant was ignorant of the value of these adornments. It was for the understanding of something finer and larger, experiences garnered up, real knowledge. How odd in a little country maiden! And this was sweeter than any of the ordinary flatteries offered her.

Helen thought her little bed delightful, and she was not sure but it was all a dream. She was still more bewildered when she opened her eyes. Someone was gently stirring about. She sprang out on the floor.

"You needn't get up just yet," said Mrs. Dayton.

"Oh, I am used to it," with a bright smile. "And maybe I can help."

She did find many little things to do. It was so pleasant to be allowed to see them herself, and do them without ordering. Mrs. Dayton said "Will you do this or that," as if she could decline, but she was very glad to be of service.

Then the boarders sauntered in to breakfast, and that was done with. Helen dusted the parlor, she had swept the porch and the paved walk down to the street before the boarders were up. Then she helped with the dishes.

"That girl knows how to work," and Joanna nodded approvingly.

"Perhaps you would like to go to market with me," suggested Mrs. Dayton. "It would be well for you to learn your way about in case I wanted to send you out of an errand."

"Oh! it would be splendid! But Mrs. Van Dorn——"

Mrs. Dayton laughed. "There comes Miss Gray, and the fussing will take a good hour. Though I think it pays, even at a dollar an hour."

Helen was silent from amazement.

"Oh, she has patients at three dollars an hour, real invalids. And she could get more in the city. Joanna knows about the breakfast. Mrs. Van Dorn is wise enough not to gorge her stomach with useless and injurious food. I never saw a person take better care of herself."

It was a very pleasant walk under maples and elms, with here and there an old-fashioned Lombardy poplar; lindens with their fringy tassels, and horse-chestnuts with their dense, spreading leaves. There was but one real market in Hope, but numerous smaller attempts. Mrs. Dayton gave her orders for the day's provision.

"Now, we will go around the longest way," smilingly. "There's the High School. It calls in quite a number of winter boarders, and sometimes the large boys prove very troublesome. And here is the Free Library, though there is quite a tax to support it, and numerous contributions. There is a fine reference-room for the scholars. Education seems to be made easy now-a-days. Let us go in."

The lower floor was devoted to the library. A large room was shelved around in alcoves, reserved for some particular kind of books. History, biography, science, music, discoveries and travels, as well as novels. The reading-room was at one end, the reference department at the other. Just now it was very quiet, being rather dull times.

Up on the next floor was a fine auditorium for amusements and lectures. In the wings were small rooms used for lodge meetings and such purposes. Helen was very much interested. Oh, what a happy time! And yet she felt a little conscience-smitten, as if she wasn't doing her whole duty.

The papers had come, and presently Mrs. Van Dorn took her accustomed seat. Mrs. Pratt was at the corner of the piazza doing needlework. Miss Lessing was sketching from nature. The younger girl was out hunting wild flowers.

Helen read the home news, then the foreign news. It seemed queer to know what they were doing in London, and Paris, and Rome, that hitherto had been merely places on the map to her. And then what financiers in New York were talking of, which really was an unknown language to her, but not to Mrs. Van Dorn, who for years had held the key.

Perhaps the charm in Helen was her interest in what she was doing. Sometimes she made quite a fanciful thing of her work at home, though she was not what you would call a romantic girl. And now most of the time she was reading, she put life into her tones. Mrs. Van Dorn had been here and there, and she wanted the descriptions of things to seem real to her.

"You're a very good reader," she said approvingly. "You must not let anyone cultivate you on different lines with their elocutionary ideas, or you will be spoiled. Who taught you?"

"Mr. Warfield. He was principal of the school. I was in his class last year."

"He has some common sense. When you go to an opera you expect to hear ranting and sighing, and sobbing, but sensible people do not talk that way about the every-day things of life."

"I don't know what an opera is like," said Helen with a kind of bright mirthfulness at her own ignorance.

"I suppose not. Men and women singing the love, and sorrow, and woe, and trials of other men and women, long ago dead, or perhaps never alive anywhere but in the composer's brain. It is the exquisite singing that thrills you. But you wouldn't want it for steady diet."

Miss Lessing spoke of two famous singers who had been in New York during the winter. And she had heard the Wagner Trilogy, which she thought magnificent.

"Yes. I've heard it at Beyreuth." Mrs. Van Dorn nodded, as if it might be an ordinary entertainment.

"Oh, it has been my dream to go abroad some time," and Miss Lessing sighed.

And there was a girl in the world who loved her own folks quite as well as a journey abroad. There was pure affection for you! Miss Lessing would jump at the offer she had made Clara Gage.

They were summoned in to luncheon. Mr. Conway was the only man of the party, not much of a talker, but the ladies loved to sit and talk over their morning's adventures, or their afternoon's intentions. Mrs. Dayton never hurried them. They all considered it the most home-y place at which they had ever boarded.

Mrs. Van Dorn went off for her nap. So did several of the others. Mrs. Dayton took Helen up-stairs. She had exhumed two of her old lawns, and thought they could modernize them into summer frocks. They were very fine and pretty, and Helen was delighted.

It was four o'clock when the coupé came, and Mrs. Van Dorn rang for Helen to come up to her room, and carry her shawl, and her dainty case with the opera glass in it for far sights, and a bottle of lavender salts. And then the driver helped them in, and away they started.

"One could almost envy that girl!" said Daisy Lessing. "I don't see why some of us couldn't be as good company."

They paused at the Public Library.

"Will you go in, Helen, and ask for 'Lays of Ancient Rome,' Macaulay's," said Mrs. Van Dorn. "I hope it won't be out."

Helen came back with the book, and sparkling eyes.

CHAPTER IV

PLANTING OF SMALL SEEDS

But it was not all smooth sailing for Helen, although it had begun so fair. The very next week was trying to everybody. It was warm and close and rainy, not a heartsome downpour that sweeps everything clean, and clears up with laughing skies, but drizzles and mists and general sogginess, not a breath of clear air anywhere. No one could sit on the porch, for the vines and eaves dripped, the parlor had a rather dismal aspect, and everybody seemed dispirited.

Mrs. Van Dorn was not well. She lost her appetite. It seemed as if she had a little fever. And she was dreadfully afraid of being ill. So many people had dropped down in the midst of apparent health, had paralysis or apoplexy, or developed an unsuspected heart-weakness. She would make a vigorous effort to keep from dying, she had no organic disease, but something might happen. Young people died, but that did not comfort her for she was not young. Helen fanned her on the sofa, in the chair. The cushions and pillows grew hot, she fanned them cool. She ran out to the well, and brought in a pitcher of fresh cold water.

"It tastes queer. I do wonder if there is any drainage about that could get into it."

Then it was, "Helen, don't read so loud. Your voice goes through my head!" and when Helen lowered her tone, she said, "Don't mumble so! I can't half hear what you are saying. How stupid the papers are! There's really nothing in them!"

If Helen had not been used to fault-finding, it would have gone hard with her. As it was she was rather dazed at first at the change.

"She'll get over it," comforted Mrs. Dayton. "And if this weather ever lets up we shall all feel better."

The Disbrowe baby was ill, too, and two or three times Helen went to relieve the poor mother. Miss Gage came and stayed one night with Mrs. Van Dorn.

Friday noon the sun shone gayly out, a fresh wind blew much cooler from the west, and everybody cheered up.

"Railly," said Uncle Jason, when he came in Saturday with butter and eggs, "you're a big stranger! Mother, she feels kinder hurt an' put out, an' wishes she hadn't let you come. You do ridin' round every day an' never come near us, as if you felt yourself too grand."

"Oh, Uncle Jason, it isn't that at all," cried Helen in protest. "We were out just a little while on Monday, and the mist came up. Mrs. Van Dorn took a cold, and has been poorly, and the weather has been just horrid until to-day. Then I have been helping Joanna with the jelly and canning, and Mrs. Disbrowe with her baby. I couldn't walk over, could I?" glancing up laughingly.

"Well, I s'pose you might—on a pinch——"

"Oh, no; it would have to be on my own two feet. And see what a mess the roads have been! Good going for ducks, but bad for your best shoes."

He laughed. Her tone was so merry it was good to hear. He had missed her cheerful presence. Aunt Jane would hardly have admitted how much she missed her about the work. 'Reely had so many slaps that she just wished Helen would come home again, it made mother so cross to have her away.

"I s'pose, now, you couldn't go back with me, and I'll bring you over Sunday."

Helen was sorry, and yet she shrank from the proposal, and was glad she could not go. Was that ungrateful?

"Oh, I really could not, Uncle Jason. You see, Mrs. Van Dorn is just getting better, and she wants a dozen things all at once, but I'll try when we go out. Perhaps the first of the week."

"I'll have to hold on to my scalp when I get home," he said rather ruefully. "Mother told me to bring you back."

"But I'm hired to stay here, and I can't run away as I like," she answered pleasantly, but with dignity.

"That's so! That's so! Well, come soon as you can."

Mrs. Van Dorn's bell rang and she had to say good-by. Mrs. Dayton entered at that moment.

"Helen," Mrs. Van Dorn said: "I've a mind to go down on the porch and sit on the west side in the sun. I'm tired to death of this room. Get me that white lambs-wool sacque, though I hate bundling up like an old woman! I think I did take a little cold. And people who are seldom ill are always the worst invalids, I've heard. Then bring that big Persian wrap, I really do feel shaky, and that's ridiculous for me."

She managed to get down stairs very well. Helen fixed the wrap about the chair and then crossed it on her knees. The white sacque was tied with rose colored ribbons, and with her fluffy, curly hair she looked like an old baby.

"Has the Saturday Gazette come? Let's hear the little gossip of the town. Who is going out of it, who is coming in, who played euchre at Mrs. So and So's, and who won first prize, and who has a new baby."

There were other things—a column about some wonderful exhumations in Arizona that were indications of a pre-historic people.

"Queer," she commented when Helen had finished, "but everywhere it seems as if cities were built on the ruins of old cities. And no one knows the thousands of years the world has stood. There is a theory that we come back to life every so often, that some component part of us doesn't die. Still, I do not see the use if one can't remember."

"But there is—heaven——" Helen was a little awe-struck at the unorthodox views.

"Well—no one has come back from heaven. I believe there are several cases of trances where people thought they were there, and had to come back, and were very miserable over it. But it seems to me being here is the best thing we know about. I feel as if I should like to live hundreds of years, if I could be well and have my faculties."

"There's Auntie Briggs, as they call her, over to Center, who is ninety-seven, and grandmother White was ninety-five on Christmas day."

"Tell me about them. Are they well? Do they get about?"

"Grandmother White is spry as a cricket, as people say. She sews and knits and doesn't wear glasses."

"That's something like." The incident cheered her amazingly. "And the other old lady?"

"She is quite deaf and walks about with a cane, but I think she's pretty well." Helen did not say she was cross and crabbed and a trial to her grand-daughter's family. It really was sad to live past the time when people wanted you. But couldn't you be sweet and comforting? Must old age be queer and disagreeable?

"I shall try to live to a hundred," said Mrs. Van Dorn. "Let me see—I wish you'd read something bright, about people having good times. Why do writers put so much sorrow in stories? It is bad enough to have it in the world."

Helen ran up and brought down a pile of novels that Mr. Disbrowe had selected in the city. But one did not suit and another did not suit.

"We will look at the sun going down. What wonderful sunsets I have seen!"

"Tell me about them," entreated Helen.

"There was one at the Golden Gate, California. No one ever could paint anything like it." Mrs. Van Dorn looked across the sky as if she saw it again. She was an excellent hand at description. Then the men were coming in, the dinner bell rang.

"I won't bother to dress, I'll play invalid."

Helen pushed the chair in a sheltered place, and laid the shawl over the back of a hall chair. Everybody congratulated Mrs. Van Dorn, and she said with a little laugh that she thought it was the weather, and she had been playing off, that she hadn't been really ill.

"I think we all gave in to the weather," said Mrs. Lessing. "I had a touch of rheumatism. You can have a fire in wet cool weather, but when it is wet hot weather, you can hardly get your breath and feel smothered."

"It's been a dreadful week for trade," remarked Mr. Disbrowe. "I haven't made my salt. Perhaps it would have been better to have tried pepper."

They all laughed at that.

"Mrs. Dayton has tried both salt and pepper and been cheerful as a lark," said Mrs. Pratt.

"And plenty of sugar," laughed Mrs. Dayton. "Though I confess I have been tried with jelly that wouldn't jell. The weather has been bad for that."

"And Miss Helen has kept rosy. She has been good to look at," subjoined Mrs. Disbrowe.

Mrs. Van Dorn smiled at the girl who flushed with the praise.

She wanted to be read to sleep that night, just as she had been the night before, and chose Tennyson.

"Well, I do hope we will have a nice week to come," Mrs. Dayton said when they were alone. "Old lady Van Dorn has been trying. Helen, you have kept your temper excellently. What are you smiling about?"

"I guess I have been trained to keep my temper."

"Because your aunt doesn't let anyone fly out but herself? That's in the Cummings blood. And you haven't any of that. Sometimes your voice has the sound of your father's. You are more Grant than Mulford."

"You knew my father——" Helen paused and glanced up wondering whether it was much or little.

"Well—yes," slowly. "And not so very much either. You see I was beyond my school days," and Mrs. Dayton gave a retrospective smile. "Your mother went to school to him the first year he taught. I never could understand——" and she wrinkled her brow a little.

"I suppose he was very much in love with her?" Helen colored vividly as if she was peering into a secret. The love stories she had been reading were taking effect in a certain fashion. She was beginning to weave romances about people. Aunt Jane blamed her father for a good many things, and especially the marriage. But she never had a good word for him.

"Oh, what nonsense for children like you to think about love! Well," rather reluctantly, "he must have been pleased with her, she was bright and pretty, but it wasn't wise for either of them, and it did surprise everybody. She was one of the butterfly kind with lots of beaus. Dan Erlick's father waited on her considerably, he was pretty gay, and people thought she liked him a good deal. Then he married a Waterbury girl, and not long after she married your father. There were others she could have had—we all thought more suitable. He was a good deal older, and cared mostly for books and study. Then he began with some queer notions, at least the Center people thought so—that the world had stood thousands of years we knew nothing about, and that the Mosaic account wasn't—well then people hadn't heard so much about science and all that, and were a little worried lest their children should turn out infidels. And he found a place in some college at the West, but it seemed as if they made a good many changes until she came home to die. But she always appeared to think he had been kind and taken good care of her. If he hadn't the Center would have heard about it."

That didn't altogether answer the question. Helen wanted some devotion on which to build a romance. Since she could not put her mother in a heroine's place, she wanted her father for a hero. But she had never seen much of him, and she had always felt a little afraid of the grave, tall, thin man who never caressed her, or indeed seemed to care about her. Had anyone really loved him? Somehow she felt his had been a rather solitary life and pitied him.

"He had a curious sort of voice," continued Mrs. Dayton. "It wasn't loud or aggressive, but—well I think persuasive is the word I mean. He had a way of making people think a good deal as he did, without really believing in him or his theories. He was a man out of place, you'll find what that means as you go on through life, a sort of round peg that couldn't get fitted to the square hole in Hope Center."

"Oh, dear! I wonder if I shall be like him?" The tone was half apprehensive, half amusing and the light in her eyes was full of curious longing.

"I do suppose you get your desire for knowledge from him. I never heard of a Mulford who was much of a student, nor a Cummings either. Though I am not sure education does all for people. You have to possess some good sense to make right use of it. And some people with very little book learning have no end of common sense and get along successfully."

Then Mrs. Van Dorn's bell rang. Helen had been polishing the glasses with a dry towel. Joanna always went over them twice, and this was quite a relief to her.

Mrs. Dayton was putting away dishes and thinking. Helen was different from the Mulford children. She was ambitious to step up higher, to get out of the common-place round. It was not that she hated work, she did it cheerfully, looking beyond the work for something, not exactly the reward, but the thing that satisfied her. And Mrs. Dayton had found in her life that a little of what one really wanted was much more enjoyable than a good deal of what one did not want, no matter how excellent it might be.

The book to-night was talks about Rome. Mrs. Van Dorn lived over again in her reminiscences, making sundry interruptions. "It was here I met such a one," she would say. "This artist from England or America was painting such a picture." And there were walks on the Pincio, lingering in churches, viewing palaces. And then—it was all real. Hadn't St. Paul written letters from Rome ever and ever so long ago? Somewhere he had "Thanked God and taken courage?" Yes. Rome was real. Had her father ever seen it? She would like to see it some day. And if she could ever get to where she could teach school—Mr. Warfield had earned enough to go abroad, and she remembered hearing him say he had worked all one year with a farmer for the sake of eight months' schooling.

There was a gentle sound of hard regular breathing, not to be called a snore, but a sign of sleep. Helen went on with a dream. Why couldn't she stay somewhere in North Hope and work for her board nights and mornings and go to the High School? She was learning so many things now about history and literature, and the whole world it seemed. Occasionally she looked over the list of examination studies and caught here and there a fact she had not understood a few weeks ago. Why this was as good as a school.

She would not breathe her plans to a soul. If only Mrs. Dayton might, or could keep her! But early in October Mrs. Dayton shut up her house and went on a round of visits after her summer's work, and Joanna went to her sister's who had seven children, the eldest hardly fourteen. But some place might open. If boys could work their way up, why not a girl?

There was a succession of pleasant days with a bright reviving westerly wind. Driving was a delight. Sometimes they went out an hour or two after breakfast, and oh, how glorious the world looked.

For two days Helen felt she was a coward. She ought to go home, but she dreaded it somehow. Why wasn't Aunt Jane like—well, Mrs. Dayton for instance, glad that other people should have some enjoyment? Yes, she did enjoy Jenny's pleasure, but how often she threatened the others!

"Could we drive around by the Center this afternoon?" Helen asked a little hesitatingly.

"Why—I thought we would go to Chestnut Hill. I like those long faded yellow chestnut blooms that hang where there are to be no chestnuts. It is like old age hanging on to some forlorn hope."

"But you do not like old age," Helen said, with a bright smile.

"Not for myself. Not for people in general. But it is pretty among the clusters of green chestnut leaves. Mrs. Dayton could make a little sermon out of that—useless old age."

"We might come round that way on our return," ventured the girl.

"Are you homesick?"

"Oh, no." A bright flush overspread Helen's face, and the light in her eyes as she turned them on Mrs. Van Dorn was so beautiful it touched her heart. "Uncle wanted to take me back on Saturday to stay over Sunday. They think——"

"Did you want to go?" with quick jealousy.

"Not very much, oh, no, I'm not homesick at all. I like it so much over here. But I ought to go now and then."

"Well—we will see."

Helen had put on her last summer's white frock. She would rather have worn the blue lawn or the pretty embroidered white muslin, made out of Mrs. Dayton's long ago skirt, but some feeling withheld her.

How beautiful Chestnut Hill was to-day! It was not all chestnuts, though they were there tall and stately, but with a mingling of maple and beech and dogwood, and here and there hemlocks and cedars. A sort of wild garden of trees, but all about the edges common little shrubs and sumac stood up loyally as if the trees were not to have it all. And smaller things in bloom tangled here and there with clematis and Virginia creeper, and a riot of mid-summer bloom. They had brought along a volume of Wordsworth's shorter poems, and Helen read here and there in the pauses.

Mrs. Van Dorn was ruminating over a thought that had crossed her mind. Wouldn't this girl be glad to go off somewhere and thrust her old life behind her? How much did she care for her people? Someone could make a fine and attractive young woman out of her, yes, there was a certain noble beauty that might be cultivated and bloom satisfactorily from twenty to thirty. Ten or twelve years?

"Take the lower road round by the Center," she said to the driver.

Helen raised her eyes in acknowledgment. They passed the old farm houses, and at the gate of one of them stood Grandmother White, a small wrinkled old lady in a faded gown and checked apron. She nodded to Helen. Was that worth the living to old age? Mrs. Van Dorn shrugged her shoulders. Thank Heaven she should not be like that when she came near the hundred mark.

"Now I will drive around a little while you make your call. It must not be very long, or we shall be late for dinner."

Helen sprang out with an airy lightness. The front windows were all darkened as usual. She ran up the path, around the side of the house. Aurelia was weeding among the late planted beets where dwarf peas had taken the early part of the season.

"Oh, Helen!" She sprang up with the trowel in her hand, "I'm so glad you've come. Are you going to stay all night? I miss you so much. I have such lots of work to do, and mother's cross a good deal of the time. We all miss you so. I s'pose its real nice over at Mrs. Dayton's, but I shall be so glad when you come back."

"No, I can't stay all night——"

"But the carriage went away——"

"'Reely, you come in and peel the potatoes. You ought to have had that weeding done long ago. Oh, Helen," as the girl had turned around the corner that led to the kitchen. "Well I declare! I began to think you had grown so fine that the Center would never see you again!"

She looked Helen over from head to foot and gave a little sniff.

"Are you coming in?" rather tartly.

"Why—yes," forcing herself to smile.

How different from Joanna's tidy kitchen! It was clean but in confusion with the odds and ends of everything. The green paper shade was all askew, there were two chairs with the backs broken off, the kitchen table was littered, the closet door was open and betrayed a huddle of articles.

"You don't seem to be very sociable, I must say. Why didn't you come over Saturday? Your uncle felt quite hurt about it. Seems to me you're mighty taken up with those people," nodding her head northward.

"I couldn't on so short a notice. Mrs. Van Dorn had not been well. I read her to sleep nearly every night. And there are so many little things to do."

"Well, if she'd employ herself about something useful she wouldn't need to be read to sleep, nor want so much waiting on."

"That is what I am hired to do," Helen returned with a good-natured intonation that she kept from being flippant.

"Well, if I had ever so much money I couldn't find it in my conscience to dawdle away time and have someone wait upon me. And how's Mrs. Dayton? All the boarders staying?"

"Yes, the house is full."

"Mrs. Dayton does have the luck of things! But she hasn't a chick nor a child, nor a husband and a lot of boys to mend for. I was foolish to let you go over there, Helen, when I needed you so much myself. It isn't even as if you were learning anything, just fiddling round waiting on a woman who hasn't an earthly thing to do. And I'm so put about, I don't know what to take up first. 'Reely, you hurry with the potatoes or you'll get a good slap."

There was a diversion with Fan and Tommy who shook sand over the kitchen floor. Fan's face was stained with berries but she flung her arms about Helen and kissed her rapturously, while Tom dug his elbows into her lap.

"Did you come in a horse and carriage?" asked Fan, wide-eyed.

"I came in the carriage."

"You know well enough what she meant, Helen. You'll get so fine there'll be hardly any living with you when you come back."

"When she came back." A tremor ran through Helen's nerves. Oh, must she come back!

"How is Jenny?" she inquired.

"Oh, Jenny's first rate, working like a beaver. There's a girl worth something, if she is mine! And the house is getting done up just splendid. Joe's crazy to be married right off, but Jenny's like me, when her mind's made up it's made up. There's a good deal of Cummings in her. Why don't you take off your hat? You're going to stay to supper?"

"No, I can't," Helen returned gently. "Mrs. Van Dorn was going to drive round a little——"

"She could have come in," snapped Aunt Jane. "We could have had the horse put out and you could both have stayed to supper. I dare say we have as good things to eat as Mrs. Dayton. She doesn't refuse our butter and eggs nor chickens when we have 'em to spare."

"They all think the butter splendid, Aunt Jane. And Mrs. Disbrowe wishes they could get such eggs in the city. She is sure what they get must be a month old," said Helen, with an attempt at gayety.

"I do make good butter. Mrs. Dayton's folks are not the first to find it out," bridling her head. "And I'll say for Mrs. Dayton she's willing to pay a fair price. But I s'pose that old woman pays well?"

Helen wondered how the woman in the carriage would look if she heard that!

"I'd like to know the prices myself. Haven't you heard Mrs. Dayton say? I might want to keep boarders, some day."

"No," answered Helen. "But there are a good many boarders at North Hope, and some of them look as if they didn't mind about money."

"Carriage has come," announced Nathan, running in. Aurelia had finished the potatoes and put them on to cook and now stood with one arm around Helen's neck.

"Stay! stay! Can't you stay?" cried a chorus of voices in various keys.

"I am not my own mistress," answered Helen, cheerfully. "And when you are paid to do a certain thing, paid for your time, it belongs to someone else."

She loosened the children's arms and rose.

"Well it is a mean little call," said her aunt, "and your uncle will be awful disappointed. But when you live with grand people I s'pose you must be grand. Do come when you can stay longer," with a sort of sarcasm in her tone.

"I'll try." Helen kept her temper bravely, left her love for Jenny and Uncle Jason. Aunt Jane had gone at making shortcake. The children followed their cousin out to the gate and showered her with good-bys, staring hard at the old lady in the carriage.

CHAPTER V

A GIRL'S DREAMS

Helen's face was flushed as she stepped into the carriage, but she held her head up with dignity and smiled. The curious two sides of her, was it brain, or mind, or that perplexing inner sight? saw the wide difference between Mrs. Van Dorn and Aunt Jane. And she liked the Van Dorn side a hundred times better than the Mulford side. The delicacy, the ease, the sort of graciousness, even if it was a garment put on and sometimes slipped off very easily. Mrs. Van Dorn was never quite satisfied. She was always reaching out for something, a pleasure and entertainment. Aunt Jane was thoroughly satisfied with herself. She scolded Uncle Jason and insisted that he lacked common sense, energy, and a host of virtues, yet she often said of her neighbors' husbands: "Well, if I had that man I'd ship him off to the Guinea Coast," though she hadn't the slightest idea of its location. She often held him up to the admiration of her friends, though she always insisted she had been the making of him. And she would not admit that there was a smarter girl in Hope Center than Jenny.

The peculiar contrast flashed over Helen. What made the complacency—content?

"Did you have a pleasant call?" When Mrs. Van Dorn didn't feel cross her voice had a certain sweetness. Helen thought the word mellifluous expressed it. She was fond of pretty adjectives.

"Aunt Jane was very busy and they all set in for me to stay. The children do miss me."

"And did you want to stay?" with the same sweetness.

"No," said Helen, honestly, while the color deepened in her cheeks. "Oh, dear! I think I am getting spoiled, citified, and North Hope isn't a city either," with a half rueful little laugh, yet not raising her eyes.

"She isn't of their kind," thought Mrs. Van Dorn. "And her courage, her truthfulness, are quite unusual. She is very trusty, there is the making of something fine in her."

"You are not fond of country life, farm life," correcting herself.

"I am quite sure I shouldn't be, and yet I like the country so much, the space, the waving trees, the great stretches of sky. I should stifle in a place where there were rows and rows of houses and paved streets everywhere."

"But not where there were palaces, and villas, and parks, and gardens, and beautiful equipages, and elegantly dressed women."

Helen shook her head, "I shall never have the chance to like or dislike that. Oh, yes," brightening, "I can read it in a book and imagine myself in the midst of it."

"I thought you ware planning to teach school, and save up money, and take journeys."

"Oh, I do, and all manner of extravagant things. But I am afraid they are air castles." For somehow the reality of her life had come over her again. She belonged to Hope Center, not to North Hope. And maybe she never could get over there.

Mrs. Van Dorn thought of herself at Helen's age. Where would her ambitions lead her. She had had no ambitions to rise in life. How gladly she would have married her first common-place lover, and accepted a life of drudgery. What queer things girls were! and how strange that when she was tired and worn out, and almost desperate, the best of fortune should come to her. It seldom happened, she knew. The old life was a vague dream, she had only lived since her marriage. In a way she coveted this girl's freshness and energy. To have someone to really and truly love her—was there any such thing in life, to old age?

She had coveted Clara Gage with the same desire of possession. She had persuaded her to give up home, mother, three sisters and one brother. But she had never ceased to love them. And they had nearly outweighed a journey to Europe. Perhaps they would. Clara was about eighteen when she took her, this girl was fourteen. She would be more pliable, and she was not really in love with her people. But there would be years of training, and there was a certain strength in the girl. Sometimes they might clash, and she did not want to be disturbed at her time of life. Then too—there were certain adventitious aids to ward off the shadow of coming years. Clara knew about them, and she had grown used to her. She would be getting older every year.

They were a little late at dinner. How delightful and orderly and refined everything was! Helen luxuriated in it. And yet it was only ordinarily nice living. Helen could see the table at home. The kitchen was large and the table at one end, and they always had meals there except when there was company, and often then the children were kept out there. The smells of the cooking did not give it the savory fragrance she read about in books. It was hot and full of flies, for the door was always on the swing.

They were around the table, everyone wanting to tell father that Helen had been to see them in a carriage, at that.

"Do hush, children!" began Aunt Jane, sharply. "You haven't any more manners than a lot of pigs, everyone squealing at once. Yes, I think we made a great mistake letting Helen go over to Mrs. Dayton's. We couldn't well refuse an old neighbor, I know. But she's that full of airs, and so high-headed that she could hardly talk. I don't see how she could make up her mind to come round to the kitchen door."

Aurelia giggled. "Wouldn't it have been funny to have her knock at the front door!" and all the children laughed.

"'Twould be a good thing to bring her back now. There's so much to do, and fruit to put up all the time. And she'd get in a little decent training before she went in the shop."

"She'll soon get the nonsense knocked out of her there," said Jenny. "You needn't feel anxious about that."

"Sho, mother, that girl's good enough where she is, an' a bargain's a bargain. She was to stay till the first of September. And when you're in Rome you do as the Romans do, I've heard. It's natural, she should get polished up a little over there."

"I'm as good as Mrs. Dayton, if I don't keep city boarders," flung out Aunt Jane, resentfully. "And I've the best claim on Helen when we've taken care of her all these years."

"I d'know as she'd earned twenty-four dollars at home," said Uncle Jason.

"I s'pose not in money," admitted Aunt Jane, who down in her heart had no notion of bringing Helen home. "But I feel as if I had earned half that money doing without her."

"Twenty-four dollars. Phew! Pap, suppose you had to pay me that!" exclaimed Sam.

"You get your board and clothes," said his mother.

So they were mapping out Helen's life, and she was thinking whether she could have the courage to fight it out. She could not go back to the farm. That she settled definitely.

She picked up Mrs. Van Dorn's wraps and her three letters and carried them upstairs.

"I'm going to rest a while," said the lady. "You may come up in—well, half an hour. Will you push the reclining chair over by the window?"

Helen did that and laid the fleecy wrap within reach, smiled and nodded and ran lightly downstairs. In a moment she was helping Mrs. Dayton take out the dishes to the kitchen, and then dried them for Joanna.

"Now Miss Helen, if you wanted a situation, I'd give you a good recommend," exclaimed Joanna, smilingly.

Then she went out on the stoop, for it still wanted ten minutes to the half hour.

Mrs. Van Dorn had taken up her letters rather listlessly. One from her lawyer concerning some reinvestments, one from a charity for a subscription. The thick one with the delicate superscription from Clara Gage.

It was long, and about family affairs. They had been a good deal worried over a mortgage that the holder had threatened to foreclose. But her sister's lover had insisted upon taking it up, and would come home to live. Her brother had obtained a good position as bookkeeper in a mill. The youngest girl would always be an invalid from a spinal trouble; Margaret, the eldest, sang in church and gave music lessons, and thus had some time for home occupations. Mrs. Gage was quite disabled from rheumatism at times. But now Clara felt the dependent ones were in good hands, and she would not only go abroad cheerfully, but gladly. Her hesitation had been because she felt they might need her at home, or near by, where they could call upon her in illness or misfortune. "You have been very kind to wait until I could see my way clear," she wrote, "and my gratitude in time to come will be your reward."

Mrs. Van Dorn felt a little pricked in her conscience. She could have settled all this herself, and made things easy for them, but Clara had not suggested any money trouble. Mrs. Van Dorn paid her a generous salary. Down in her heart there had been a jealous feeling that her money could not buy everything, could not buy this girl from certain home obligations.

But the letter pleased her very much in its frankness and its acknowledgment of favors. Yet her old heart seemed strangely desolate. How could she obtain the love she really desired? For if you did favors there was gratitude, but was that love?

Did anybody care to love an old woman? She sometimes longed to have tender arms put about her neck, and fond kisses given. But her cheeks were made up with the semblance of youth, her lips had a tint that it was not well to disturb. Oh, to go back! To be fifty only, and have almost fifty more years to live. The money would last out all that time, even.

But here was a chance with this new girl. Clara might marry. She, Mrs. Van Dorn, had been rather captious about admirers. It wasn't given to every girl to make a good marriage at five and thirty. In three years Helen would be seventeen, and with a good education, very companionable. It would be best not to lead her to hope for anything beyond the education, she might grow vain and be puffed up with expectations of great things to come. Let the great things be a surprise.

There was a little tap at the door.

"Do you want me?" inquired the cheerful voice. "It is a full half hour."

"No, yes. I'll be made ready for bed if you please, little maid," and her tone was full of amusement. "Then I'll dismiss you and lie here by the window a while, as I have something to think about, until I get sleepy. Bring the jewel case."

Helen was quite fascinated with all the adornments. There were dainty partitions, velvet rooms, Helen called them, boxes in which rings were dropped, a mound to lay the bracelets, where a tiny ridge kept them from slipping, a hook for the pendants, and a case for the pins. The girl placed them in deftly, as only a person who really loved them could. To her their sparkle seemed the flame of a spirit.

Then the laces were laid in their boxes. Helen hung up the soft silk gown, the petticoats with their lace and ruffles, the night dress was donned and a pretty wrapper over it, the slippers exchanged for some soft knit ones. As for her hair—perhaps she slept in it, for that was never taken down until after the girl went away.

"Now are you comfortable?"

"Yes. Helen, how did you come by so many pretty ways? I do not believe they abound in your aunt's house."

"No, they do not." Helen laughed in soft apology. "I think because everything is nice and dainty here, and everybody is——" How could she explain it.

"No, you're not quite so much of a chameleon as that. It is something from the inside, that was born with you. And you must have the opportunity of developing it. There child, good-night."

Mrs. Van Dorn felt suddenly in a glow. She would do a good deed, help this girl to her true place, cast some bread upon the waters and have it return to her presently. Three years. She hoped Helen would grow tall and keep slim, her eyes were beautiful, her complexion clear and fine if a little sun-burned. She had nice hands, too, now that she was taking care of them. She was quick to see any improvement, she had adaptiveness and a pleasant temper. She would make an attractive young woman at seventeen, and she would owe it all to her. She must love her benefactress. Why, this was something to live for!

Helen sat on the far end of the stoop step. There were two rows of steps. This commanded the kitchen porch, as well as the dining room. Most of the boarders were up at the other end, where two hammocks were slung, but this was a favorite nook of hers when she wanted to think. Mrs. Dayton came out presently, having finished her talk with Joanna.

"Are you homesick or lonesome?" she inquired. "Was everybody glad to see you to-day."

"The children were. I think Aunt Jane was a little hurt because I didn't come and stay over Sunday."

"Do you want to go next Saturday? Though what we could do with Mrs. Van Dorn I don't know."

"I think I do not want to go," Helen made answer slowly. "Oh, Mrs. Dayton," and she stretched out her hand in entreaty, "can't you sit down here a few moments. I want to talk to someone. I want to know whether I am right, or wrong and ungrateful. And I have a half plan if—if——"

"What is it, child?" The girl's tone appealed to her strongly, and she sat down beside her.

"It seems to me as if I only roused up along in the winter, and began to study in earnest. Mr. Warfield took such an interest in me. And I began to love knowledge, to learn how much there was of it in the world. He thought I ought to go to the High School and study for a teacher, and then I just knew what I should like best of all things in the world. And since I've been here I've thought it over and over——"

"And do not know how to compass it?" There was a sound in her voice that expressed the smile on her face.

"I have even planned for that. If you did not go away all the fall I should ask you to let me stay and do some work, and try to even it up next summer when the boarders come. But I've thought maybe there would be someone else who would be satisfied with what I could do nights and mornings and Saturdays for my board——"

The tone was breathless and had to stop. She was amazed that she could say all this.

"My dear child! Have you been studying all this out? Well, you certainly have a right to education when you are willing to work for it that way. And I believe it can be compassed."

Helen squeezed the hand nearest her with a joyful eagerness.

"But there's another side to it. I didn't think of that until this afternoon. I fancied I could go away and study and work until I came to the place where I could earn money, like Miss Remington, and no one would have any right to interfere. Aunt Jane thinks I know quite enough, and has planned for me to go in the shop, Jenny has spoken for the chance. I should just hate it! I think I should run away. I don't know why I am different, but I am. I feel it now more than ever. Aunt Jane doesn't want me to be like my father, and she lays the blame on education. Oh, Mrs. Dayton, you do not think he ever did anything absolutely wrong, that one had need to be ashamed of?"

Helen's face was in a blaze of scarlet. How many times she had longed to ask the question.

"Why no. He had the name of being queer, and holding queer beliefs. But he was honest as the day, and temperate, and not given to brawling as the Bible has it. And he paid Aunt Jane for a while. I feel sure he must be dead."

"And since then they have taken care of me. Aunt Jane thinks I ought to be very grateful, and I do want to be. I suppose they could have sent me to the poor-house."

"Oh, no, Uncle Jason wouldn't."

"I don't believe Aunt Jane would. But does that give them the right to say what I shall do or be, or put me in the shop against my will, when maybe I could earn my own way somewhere else?"

"Why no, I do not think it does. You were not even given to them. You certainly have the right to decide some things. And if friends should be willing to help you——"

"I don't want to be ungrateful. I don't want to be snobbish. But I like the nice aspects of life so much better than the common things. And I wonder now why people do not take naturally to the refinements of life. Yet the other people are very happy in their way, too. I think Aunt Jane wouldn't enjoy the manner in which you do things here. She would call it putting on airs."

"Yes, I understand. The world goes on improving, advancing, making life more kindly and gracious, weeding out the roughnesses. It is just as honest and true, it calls for more self-control, it is as helpful. Of course, there are selfish people with a good deal of polish, and there are ignorant people very obstinate and disagreeable. Education does not do everything, but it helps. And if there is an easier or better, or more enjoyable manner of earning one's living, I do not see why one should not aim at it, and strive to reach it."

"Oh, thank you a thousand times." Helen's voice broke from very joy. "I kept wondering if I had the right to do what I liked."

"It will take some courage. But you might try it one year. And I am sure there will be friends to help such an ambitious girl. At present we will not say anything about it, but don't feel troubled. I believe it will come out right."

"Oh, how good you are!" Helen pressed the hand she held to her warm, soft cheek with a mute caress.

It seemed to her as if she might be walking on air, her heart was so light. And still there was a secret sympathy with her aunt for the disappointment. Yet, what real difference could it make to Aunt Jane, whether she taught school, or worked in a shop. She should not feel better or grander, only more thoroughly satisfied with her lot in life. And before she took any journeys, she would pay Uncle Jason for these years of care since her father died. That would be her duty for taking her own way.

"We are going to take up something solid," said Mrs. Van Dorn, the next morning. "I am tired of frivolous novels. We will have a little history, and learn about places and people, and what has been done in the world, and improve our minds."

Helen looked up with a new and rather surprised interest. "There is so much in your mind already," she returned with the admiration in her voice that was so grateful to the elder woman. "Oh, I do wonder if I shall ever know so many things."

"There are years for you to study in. I did not know all these things at fourteen."

She would never have confessed how little she knew at that period.

They stopped now and then to discuss some point, but Mrs. Van Dorn was going over several other considerations. An ordinary country girl with the sweetest temper in the world would not have given her more than a passing pleasure. This girl was quite out of the ordinary with her intelligence and her quick understanding. She would love all the finer arts of life. Her enthusiasm was really infectious. That was what one needed when one was going down the other side of the great divide. And she didn't really belong to anybody. Clara would never forget her mother and sisters, and if they were ill she would want to fly to them. This girl was not comfortable in her home, she would not sigh for it. And she might adore her, for there was a kind of worship in her nature. To be adored by a young girl who might have been her grandchild, the child of the daughter she had longed for and never had.

Helen glanced up hesitatingly.

"Oh, I'm not asleep," laughingly. "I was thinking. You have a fine voice, so strong and clear, and not aggressive. Don't you sing?"

"Oh, yes. When I am out in the fields I sing with the birds."

"But you have never had lessons in elocution?"

"Mr. Warfield taught me that the best reading was entering into the spirit of the writer, imagining yourself in the scenes that are described, or taking part in any conversation. And he said when I recited that last day of school, I must be the Captains and Hervé Riel, just as if I was leading in the ships."

Her face was in a glow, her eyes luminous.

"How old is Mr. Warfield?"

Helen Grant's father had married one of his young pupils, Mrs. Van Dorn remembered.

"Oh, I don't know, a real young man. He has only been at the Center a year."

Mrs. Van Dorn nodded with her chin, a way she had.

"He is quite in earnest about your going to the High School?" she continued.

"He thinks I could teach, and I should like that so much."

She flushed daintily recalling the other half secret she had touched upon with Mrs. Dayton.

"The girl is capable of love and all that nonsense," thought Mrs. Van Dorn. Why should she not come to love her?

CHAPTER VI

HOW THEY ALL PLANNED

"Helen," began Mrs. Dayton, "I was thinking if you would like to go home on Saturday and make your visit it might be a good thing. We have made no real plans about the winter as yet, but we might like to presently."

There was a half mirthful, half meaning light in her eyes.

"Oh!" Helen said. She was not longing for the visit. Her cool reception by her aunt had really hurt her.

"Time is going so fast. Why, here it is only two weeks and a half to September."

"If you think I had better," very soberly.

"Yes, I do. It would look rather underhand if you went home and said nothing when we had settled upon certain intentions."

"Yes, I understand."

Mrs. Van Dorn objected, but when she found it was a matter of duty, rather than delight, she gave in with a few little grumbles. Uncle Jason was so full of satisfaction he hugged Helen to his heart and kissed her.

So she said good-by and had a pleasant drive over, heard all the small on dits of the farm; that two hens had stolen nests and brought off twenty-three chickens between them; and old Bose, the dog, had died suddenly, and they had a mastiff pup eight months old; that they were building a new fence on the back of the barn lot, and that there would be no end of apples this fall. He really didn't know what they would do when Jenny went away, and he wished girls didn't want to get married. But she, Helen, would come home and that would liven up things a bit.

They turned into the lane and when they were by the kitchen she sprang out. One child carried the news to another, and they huddled about her so that she could hardly walk.

"Here's Helen, mother!"

"Well, I declare! How do you do, child! You never could come in a better time! I had a good mind to tell Uncle Jason to bring you home, and I guess he just scented it. Children, don't eat Helen up, this hot night," exclaimed their mother.

"She isn't cooked," said Tom.

"But she'll be stewed or steamed, and there's plenty for supper. We're going to have a houseful to-morrow. Aunt Sarah and Uncle John and the girls, and Martha's beau. She's been long enough about it, twenty-five, if she's a day, and I'd been married six years before I was as old as that. But she's going to do real well, though he's a widower with two children. And Joe as usual. Though we all went down there to supper last Sunday. Jenny's going to have things nice, I tell you! Did you bring another frock, Helen? I've been making 'Reely wear out your old clothes. And gracious me! how you have grown! You won't have a thing to wear in the fall."

"I left my bundle in the wagon," as Aunt Jane made a little halt in her talk.

"Nat, you run and get it. 'Reely, do begin settin' that table. 'Reely isn't worth a rye straw about housework. She's Mulford all over, and you've got to keep pushing the Mulfords along or they'd fall asleep in their tracks. Here she's past eleven. My, the work I did when I was eleven! Now Helen, you just put on something commoner and help round a bit and we'll have supper."

Helen ran upstairs and changed her dress. She was glad of the cordial welcome. But as she looked around she wondered if she had been really content here. Did children suddenly come to some mental growth and understanding? Whom did she take after? It was queer, but when Aunt Jane said of one child "she was all Cummings, or all Mulford," it was the same heredity that they discussed at Mrs. Dayton's.

Where did she get her finer instincts from? For she had them long ago, only she was afraid to bring them out and have them laughed at. Her little white covered cot at Mrs. Dayton's looked so sweet and wholesome, everything was put in a closet, the table held a few books, a work-basket, often a bowl of flowers. This was all littered up, the candlestick decorated with piles of grease, the faded and worn bed quilt put on awry, shoes here and there, garments hung anywhere, and Fan's dolls and stuff of all kinds in the corner. Of course Jenny's room was more orderly, but it lacked something, the suggestion of refinement.

Uncle Jason and Sam had come in, and it seemed as if the kitchen was full. They scrambled round the table, pushing and crowding.

"Do keep still, children!" begged their father.

"'Reely, you haven't put on a bit of salt. I think every time you forget it I ought to make you eat a spoonful," said her mother.

"I haven't any fork!" declared Nathan.

"And if we made her eat a fork, it might disagree with her, and we'd have one fork less," commented Sam.

"Can't I have a piece of bread and butter? Why can't we have some butter down here?" cried Tom.

"I'll spread it for you. Sam, will you please pass me the butter?" said Helen in a quiet tone.

"Me too, Helen," entreated Fanny, holding up her piece of bread.

"It's so nice to have you again," and 'Reely squeezed Helen's arm.

Uncle Jason helped to the meat and potatoes. There was a great clatter of passing plates, and the confusion of several voices at a time. Aunt Jane scolded, then she gave Tom a slap.

"There comes Joe and Jen," announced Sam.

Jenny left work at four on Saturday and went to the house. Joe was keeping himself, and they had a cup of tea, some bread and butter, cold meat and blackberries together.

"How do, Helen. You're a big stranger. Let's sit out on the porch, Joe. I'll bring some sewing."

"That's the most industrious girl in the country," said Joe with a laugh. "I shall have to buy goods by the bale to keep her in work."

Some way they did get through with the meal, Uncle Jason and Sam first, then one by one straggling out. Helen helped put away the food and said she would wash the dishes, and Aurelia and Fan might dry them. Why couldn't Aunt Jane go out on the porch and take a rest?

"I'm tired as a dog. I've gone since half past four this morning. There was so much to do. I declare, Helen, your coming over was just a special providence. When I get hold of you again, I'll see that no one coaxes you away. I was a fool to consent to it. But you'll soon be home now."

"Yes, go out and get cooled off and rested."

Aunt Jane was really glad to. Helen kept the two girls busy until the things were put away and the kitchen tidied up. The fire was out and the room getting cooler. The girls clung so to Helen, that she felt as if she would be torn in two. And sitting on the steps they wanted to know about the queer old woman, and didn't Mrs. Dayton make a pile of money? 'Reely thought when she was grown up she would keep boarders and have a servant. Did Joanna do everything?

"Oh, no. Mrs. Dayton helps, and I do a good many things when Mrs. Van Dorn does not want me."

"Is she very cross?"

"Oh, no," with a laugh of amusement.

"Not as cross as mother?" with childish frankness.

"You all annoy Aunt Jane so," returned Helen. "If you would go at once and do as she tells you, and try to remember."

"But I forget so easily," moaned Aurelia. "And I just hate to work."

"What would you like to do?"

"Play, and go out in the woods, and nutting. Oh, when will it be nut time? And then there's school."

"One can't play forever unless one wants to be a dunce."

"I like dolls," interposed Fanny. "And I'm making clothes for them. Oh, have you any pretty pieces?"

"It's time you youngsters went to bed," declared their mother.

"Where's Helen going to sleep?"

"Don't you worry about Helen."

The girls came and kissed her. Then she sat in the fragrant dusk and heard a whippoor-will; and Uncle Jason and Joe Northrup comparing crops, and telling yields of certain years. Aunt Jane fell asleep in the quiet. Jenny came down to her step and asked about styles, and what was in the stores, and if prices had gone down. Joe went home presently, and Jenny said, "Now come. You're going to sleep with me. This'll be your room when I'm gone. Oh, dear! I suppose some day you'll be married, too. Don't you take a fellow unless he has a house to put you in."

Helen felt in a strange whirl, but after awhile she slept. And Sunday morning was all confusion again. Joe and Jenny and Sam went to church; the company came, and Helen helped with the dinner, making the table look so pretty and tidy, that the dining-room was very pleasant. The four younger children were out in the kitchen, and once Aunt Jane had to go out and administer slaps all round to quell a riot.

Martha and her lover were very staid and sedate. Jane, the younger sister, was rather flighty, and plied Helen with innumerable questions about North Hope. She had heard the young girls went out every day to see the stores and catch the beaus as they came home from work. And did the people in her house have dancing parties every Saturday night? She had read in some magazine that it was the fashion to do so.

The two mothers were much engrossed with the coming marriages. The young people walked down to see Jenny's house; there was a light supper, and then they said good-by to each other.

It seemed to Helen she had never been so happy in her life as when she was once more settled in her round at Mrs. Dayton's. The order and quietness, the nice adjustment that she was beginning to understand and appreciate; the bright talk that went to outside subjects and did not revolve in one small personal round, was so much more interesting. True, Mrs. Lessing and her daughter discussed clothes, and the other ladies joined in, but it was on the æsthetic and artistic side. They talked of so many other things—daily events outside of North Hope. That was not all their world. It was the larger world that so interested Helen.

She and Mrs. Dayton discussed some possibilities. When Mrs. Dayton went away, Mr. Conway slept in the house, and took his meals elsewhere, but even if Helen could attend to the house it would not be possible to leave her alone in it. Then there would be clothes and various expenses. It was not as easy a matter to settle as it looked. Of course there was a sort of adoption of Helen, but Mrs. Dayton was not quite sure she wanted the responsibility. She had worked through a good deal of pressure herself, and was now where she could enjoy some of the pleasures of life as a compensation. There might be found a neighbor who would be glad of Helen's assistance—she would offer to provide her clothes.

Helen had settled herself at her reading one morning, when Mrs. Disbrowe just paused at the door with her baby in her arms, and nodded to Mrs. Van Dorn.

"Excuse me for interrupting, but there is a young man down on the porch who wishes to see Helen. He would not come in."

Helen glanced up in amaze, then smiled, as she raised her eyes to Mrs. Van Dorn.

"I think it is the young man from the library. Perhaps he found the book you wanted."

"Ah—that is quite likely. Run down and see."

Helen put her marker in, and laid down her book. But when she reached the porch and the caller rose from the wicker rocker, she stretched out both her hands with a glad cry of surprise:

"Oh, Mr. Warfield!"

He glanced at her, held her off and studied her again.

"Why, you have grown or changed or something," he exclaimed in surprise. "And it has only been such a little while! You look as if you were really glad to see me," and the smile gave him such a cordial expression.

"Oh, I am. You can't think how glad. And it is so unexpected——"

Her voice was fairly alive with delight.

"I crossed ten days sooner than I had planned. A friend wanted some papers which were in my possession, and I had to come out here for them. So I reached the Center just in time for supper, and went over to your uncle's in the evening."

There was an odd expression in his face—amusement and annoyance it seemed, and as if he was quite at sea. Then he said almost abruptly, "Let us sit down. There is a good deal of talking to do—or very little, as the case may turn," in a rather dry tone.

"Excuse me, while I go up and explain to Mrs. Van Dorn. Oh, I have so much to say, too. So many things have happened to me."

She was off like a flash, but he noted the grace of her movement; the air that showed she had capabilities beyond the usual untrained country girl. Would she have to be wasted on a second or third rate life?

"I suppose you have done nothing with the papers I gave you," he began, when she returned. "I have heard of your driving around, and your dissipation."

"Oh, but I have," she replied eagerly. Then she gave a bright infectious laugh. "You can't think—why it seems now as if I had been at school all summer. I have learned so many new things about the world and the people in it. I have read books and papers, and found out about the places where you have been. Mrs. Van Dorn has been—well, nearly all over the world, I believe, and she has met musicians and artists, and people who write books and poems, and has seen kings and queens——"

"Then you haven't spent all the time reading novels? I was afraid you had. But your aunt—have you any idea of keeping on at school?"

"They do not want me to," she answered gravely. "But Mrs. Dayton thinks they have no real right to decide for me, if I can do anything for myself. And why isn't it just as good and honorable for a girl to work for her education when she is hungry for the knowledges in the world, as for a boy! And if I can do anything, don't you think they ought to consent?"

"Well! well! well!" his exclamation points were in full evidence. He studied her brave eager face, it had in it certain strong earnest lines, certain lines of prettiness, too. All before her was an unknown country. No one could truly map out another's life, and be sure of the making, but he knew he should not mar it as the Mulfords might in their ignorance of her desires and capabilities. He resolved to take a decisive hand in it.

"You don't want to go back to the Center?" He knew what her answer would be, but he desired to see the varying expressions of her face.

"No, I don't. Oh, I can't! I should be fighting with something within me all the time, and planning how to get out of it all. I want to learn. I want to teach, too. I want to see some of the great things in the world, some of the great people, and just live all through, every part of me, if you can understand."

How her face changed with every new thought.

"Really you have been making strides. Helen, you are not going to be satisfied with a holiday to see Belle Aurore. You are going to ask greater things."

"And Hervé Riel ought to have been given greater things when he had saved the ships for his country. Am I foolish to aim at the greater things?"

Her eyes were sparkling, and a brilliant color suffused her face, while the scarlet lips were quivering with emotion and resolve.

"I should like you to reach them. Have you any plans?" His interest was thoroughly awakened.

"Mrs. Dayton has been so kind, a real friend. I don't mean that Aunt Jane and Uncle Jason are not real friends. They have been very good to care for me since father died. Isn't it in not understanding just what satisfies you down in your soul. Jenny is very happy working in the factory. I should just hate it. And, oh, I think it would be dreadful for her to sit and read to Mrs. Van Dorn," laughing with a gay ripple. "We have talked, but not settled upon anything definite. Mrs. Dayton thinks she might find someone who would give me my board for what I could do nights and mornings and Saturdays, and she would help me out with clothes, for I know Aunt Jane would be very angry if I went against her wishes. And Mrs. Dayton wouldn't need me. She has Joanna, you know. Then, too, she goes away in the autumn——"

"Well, I must say you have gone pretty far along in plans. I felt quite discouraged last night, though I imagine I might have talked Uncle Jason into doing something for you. But your aunt thinks three years spent in learning to teach, and not being able to earn a dollar for yourself, is an awful waste of time. As if that was all there was to it!" disdainfully. "Helen, I could find it in my heart to wish you were my sister, then I could come to the rescue."

"Oh!" There was a world of exquisite delight in the tone that touched him to the very soul. "If I were! Why can't some people be in the places they would like? Some people are!" with an odd humorous laugh. "And it is the dissatisfaction that stirs you up; makes you ambitious. What is it that keeps up the dissatisfaction?" glancing at him with the smile still on her parted lips, yet full of perplexity.

"The knowledge that you are capable of doing something better, finer. If you were deficient in that, you could go to work cheerfully in the factory. You would enjoy associating with the girls."

"And then having a beau and marrying," she laughed. "Oh, I like books so much better, and knowing about the world."

"What of the examination papers. Have you found any time for them?"

"Oh, yes. There were some books in the library that helped. And such a splendid encyclopædia! I wrote them out once, and then I read a great deal more, and wrote them over again. I'll give them to you, and you must consider how good a chance I have of passing. Oh, if I should fail!"

"You could go in later on. I do not think you will. I have wondered about you so many times this summer, and I have always seen you under the disadvantages of the Center, and the few helps you would have. You might have written me a letter."

"Oh, did you mean that I should?"

She asked it in sweet, eager unconsciousness, which showed that it would have been a pleasure. He had not suggested it from a wonder as to whether Aunt Jane would approve.

"I should have enjoyed an answer about your new life," he replied with interest. "I am very glad this happened to you instead of an uneventful summer on the farm and retrograding, I am afraid. And you like this"—old lady, he was about to say, but checked himself—"this Mrs. Van Dorn."

"It's something more than like. I cannot describe it in any word, that I know, unless it is like something I was reading a few days ago, fascination. When she talks about the places and people she has seen it seems as if I could listen forever. And then, you may think this queer," and she colored vividly, "sometimes I like Mrs. Dayton the best. I wish I didn't change about so. It is the same with books. Am I very inconstant, fickle?"

"If we couldn't change our minds, think what fossils we should soon be," and he laughed good-humoredly. "Yes, I should like to see her."

She started, then she came back a step. "I have not really talked over the plan of—of earning my way with her," and her voice fell a little. "Mrs. Dayton thought it best not to say anything until we had some certainty. She is going away soon. Her real companion comes next week."

He nodded that he understood the delicate charge. "And where is Mrs. Dayton?"

"She went to market, and to do various errands. I should like you to talk to her about it."

"Yes, I want to," he replied decisively.

Helen went upstairs and was gone quite a while. He was thinking of the bright, earnest, energetic girl, willing to work her way. He must plan it out with Mrs. Dayton. She was the one girl out of fifty who could rise above circumstances. Yet her aunt would be more than vexed, positively angry.

Mrs. Van Dorn experienced a curious pang, when the girl's face brilliant with a definite emotion, flashed upon her with ardor in every line. What had moved her so? The eyes were luminous, the voice freighted with a new depth.

"Yes," she answered stiffly. "I must see this young man—he is young, isn't he? It seems to me he has been making a long call."

"Oh, we had so much to talk about, my summer here and all its pleasures, and the knowledge. Why, I told him I felt as if I had been at school all the time, I had learned so many things from you, and that you——"

She paused and flushed, wondering if the talk had been just right in the more delicate sense.

"That I was cross and queer, and full of whims——"

"Oh, I couldn't say that. It was about your journeys, and the people you had met. And he was so interested."

Mrs. Van Dorn was mollified, and added a few touches to her toilet, picked up a fleecy scarf, came downstairs with her hand on Helen's shoulder, and was duly presented. The man was young.

But the lady was an agreeable surprise. He had been a little biased by Aunt Jane, he admitted to himself. She was like some of the fine old ladies he had met abroad, who carried their age with a serene unconsciousness.

Mrs. Dayton was coming up the path, and gave them a little nod.

"Perhaps she would like your service a while, Helen," exclaimed Mrs. Van Dorn. "I should enjoy having a little talk with your friend."

Helen rose reluctantly. She would much rather have stayed. But in five minutes she was in full flow of an interested confidence with Mrs. Dayton, and then they sat down on the north corner of the kitchen porch, and peeled peaches for the luncheon, as it was getting late.

Mr. Warfield meant to suggest several things to Mrs. Van Dorn that could tend to Helen's benefit presently. She resolved to learn what he thought of the child's capabilities for advancement. In a certain way, though, they both parried skillfully, each gained a point, yet it was not the point Mr. Warfield set out to make.

CHAPTER VII

SUCCESSFUL

They chatted a little after the meal was over, and Mr. Warfield asked Helen to get her papers, and let him see how she had made out with them. Mrs. Van Dorn gave him a pleasant good-by, and said she must go and take her daily nap, the best preventive of old age that she knew. Her smile was over the fact that she held the winning card, and now she had resolved to play for the girl. It was more entertaining.

Helen brought her papers, very nicely written, and Mr. Warfield admitted well prepared. There were but few corrections to be made. Then he smiled, and said in a tone he meant to be comforting, if the matter was not:

"Perhaps you know, Helen, you cannot use these. Some were last year's questions, some I guessed at, though I believe I hit two rightly. You sit down in the room, at the table, and a list is given you, and you write out your answers from your own interior knowledge, with no helps from books or friends."

Helen glanced up in dismay, her rosy cheek paled, her lip had a suspicious quiver.

"But I thought——" and she looked at the discarded papers, over which she had taken so much pains.

"My dear child, I wanted you to put in practice what you had already learned. Vacation is a trying time to the memory, unless one resolves the subject in one's mind. It would have been better for you to come up at once for the examination, but I didn't see how it was to be managed. Indeed, last night I confess I did not see how the plan could be carried through, and I am surprised at your courage and energy."

"Then the papers are of no use," she commented in a tone of disappointment.

"They have been of a good deal of use in mental training. You will find it much easier to write on kindred subjects. And I must say you have had a fortunate summer; so much better than anything I had anticipated for you. You have shown commendable courage in taking a step many girls would have shrunk from. I am sure that you will succeed, and some way we must all make it possible for you to go through the High School. I feel confident that Providence will smile on our efforts."

She glanced up soberly.

"You would have gone without hesitation when school closed in the summer?"

"Oh, yes." Then she laughed. She was the wholesome sort of girl, who could laugh at herself. "That was because I knew so little. And since I have found how much knowledge of every kind there is in the world, mine seems so small. I am afraid I don't want to compare myself with the people who know less, and those who know more seem so far ahead of me," she subjoined frankly.

"That need not take away one's courage. At eight and twenty you will know a good deal more, at eight and forty if you use life rightly, you will have discarded a good deal of the youthful knowledge, and taken on maturer thoughts. Schooldays do not end with the close of a school for vacation. You observe that goes on after a little rest. And the real scholars go on. All life is a school. I did some hard studying the fortnight I was in London. I shall do some more this winter. There is always something ahead of the one who loves knowledge."

He had a very encouraging smile for those who deserved it. He could frown as well, she knew, and this particular smile was used with discrimination; it was not the every-day pleasant look.

"So you will go next Tuesday. Louise Searing did not pass. She will keep you company. I must leave for New York in the train at four, and cannot be back before Wednesday. But I shall be thinking of you, and for my sake you must not fail. You see, it helps or hinders my reputation. I want all my five candidates to pass. There have never more than three gone from the Center school before."

"I will try my best," she returned. The thought that she would do something for him inspired her as well.

So they said good-by, and she went out to the kitchen. Two baskets of tempting Bartlett pears had come, and Mrs. Dayton, with a big kitchen apron on, and her sleeves rolled up, was beginning to pare them. As soon as Joanna had done the dishes she would can.

"If you wouldn't mind helping, Helen. Put that big kitchen sacque over your dress, and button the sleeves around your wrists. Pear juice stains dreadfully. And then we will talk about the plans. Mr. Warfield is a delightful gentleman to meet, and he is very much interested in you."

If Helen was two or three years older, she might repeat her mother's destiny, the lady thought, and Mr. Warfield was a much more attractive man than Addison Grant.

They discussed the examination, and Mrs. Dayton endeavored to inspire her with hope, and she was confident a place could be found for Helen.

"But how to get the folks at home to consent to any such step will be the puzzle. As soon as we know about the examination I will have a talk with your uncle. I think I can persuade him to look upon the plan in the best light for you, and you can stay here all September."

"But there will be Jenny's wedding about the middle of the month, Aunt said."

"And on the tenth the High School opens."

"Oh, dear! My schooldays seem a great perplexity," and Helen gave a vague smile. "Some girls' lives run on so smoothly, but mine appears full of upsets."

"Take courage and go on. I think it will come out right. But I shall not make a single plan until you have passed the examination."

Then Mrs. Van Dorn's bell rang.

Helen slipped off her sacque, washed her hands, and suddenly bent down and kissed Mrs. Dayton's forehead. "Oh," she cried with deep tenderness, "I wish I had a mother! I wish you were my mother."

Mrs. Dayton looked after her, as she flashed through the dining room. All her motions were light and rapid, yet she never ran over chairs, or bumped up against doors or corners. It was a grace born in her, and Mrs. Dayton wondered that it had not all been wrenched out of her by the crude bustling life at the Mulfords'. And she wondered how it would seem to have a daughter growing up who would love her and care for her. Helen was overflowing with gratitude, and one of the best features of it was that it abounded in deeds rather than words. She always wanted to do something in return, she often did it without stopping to inquire, daily little things that evinced thoughtfulness. After all, her three years' board would hardly be felt, there would be the summer vacation. Only, if she should be sent away somewhere to teach afterward. But there would be three pleasant years. She could afford to do it now, she had gone past the pinches, and was putting by a little every year.

Mrs. Van Dorn, upstairs on her couch in the comfort of a dressing sacque, was amusing herself with plans as well. She did like to enjoy outgeneraling people. And this young Mr. Warfield's confidence rather piqued her. The same thought had entered her mind that this enthusiastic girl might repeat her mother's story, and she had a fancy that it had been one of disappointment.

Years ago the daughter of a cousin, the only relative who had ever befriended her, after a prosperous married life of a dozen years' duration, was thrown on her own endeavors for a livelihood, with two little girls. She had a beautiful house in a pretty, refined town, but there was a considerable mortgage on it. Mrs. Van Dorn had come to her assistance; she was not all selfishness. With a little aid, Mrs. Aldred had established herself in a day and boarding school, had added to her house, and become the pride of the pretty town of Westchester. One act of Mrs. Aldred had gone to her old cousin's heart. She had paid the whole sum loaned, interest and principal, and sent the most heartfelt thanks. She was a prosperous and happy woman, and her girls were growing up into usefulness, one was teaching, the other would be an artist. There was no hint or suggestion that she should like to be remembered in anyone's will, or would be grateful for any gift. The principle of the incident really touched Mrs. Van Dorn, who paid Mrs. Aldred a visit, and on her departure left her what she called a little gift in token of her courage and business ability, a check for a thousand dollars.

"I'm going to take the good of what I have," she announced with a rather grim smile, "so I shall have the less to leave behind when I die."

That had been five years ago. Now Mrs. Van Dorn had written to know if the school was still prosperous, and what the terms were, and if she would take the supervision of an orphan girl who was ambitious, eager, capable of many things, a girl full of bright promise, amiable in temper, who was to be trained to get her own living if that came to her, but accomplished for society, if that should be her lot.

After her talk with Mr. Warfield she had made up her mind. He should not have his way in this matter. She would try her hand, or her money with this girl. She was going abroad again for the next year or two, and she would give Helen two years of education under Mrs. Aldred's supervision. Then she would decide if she wanted her, and in what capacity.

Fourteen only. Twenty would be young enough to marry. She would have six years of interest. If the girl came to love her very much——

The poor old heart had a hungering for ardent love, as well as admiration. And Helen Grant was grateful. To rescue her from a distasteful life like that at her uncle's, or a life of drudgery working her way through school would appeal to her, for Mrs. Van Dorn had discerned that the girl had a great hungry heart for all the accessories of finer living, though she did not know what the vague restless stirring within meant.

The carriage paused at the gate. "Help me into my waist," she said to Helen. "I've dawdled my time away finely. What have you been doing?"

"Peeling pears for canning," she replied merrily. "Mrs. Dayton picked out a dish of lovely ones for you, and put them in a cool place. They are luscious. I wonder if you would like to have one now?"

"Oh, no. That will be something to think of when I come back. The wind has blown up a little cooler, and I am glad. Get my bonnet, and the blue wrap."

They went downstairs together, and were helped into the coupé. "To the Postoffice first," she said. "We will wait on ourselves this time."

Mr. Conway always brought the mail up at six, though it reached Hope at three.

"Your friend, Mr. Warfield, is going to the city? He is very earnest that you shall take the examination. How do you expect to arrange about the High School? You will have to live here at North Hope."

Helen colored vividly, and a half-humorous smile parted her lips, and made dimples in the corners.

"I shall have to earn my own living someway," she answered courageously. "Aunt Mulford will be much opposed to it, but I think Uncle will see before long that it will be best. Mrs. Dayton will be a very good friend to me. It all turns on my passing the examinations successfully."

"And if you should not?"

"Then I must go back to the Center. But I would have another chance by the first of January. And I have quite resolved that if I do not accomplish it this year I will try next summer."

There was a charm in her courage and perseverance. Mrs. Van Dorn thought she had never looked prettier. She could not have taken so cordially to a plain girl.

They reached the Postoffice. Helen sprang out, and came back with an eager smile and three letters. Then they turned into an old shady street, and drove slowly.

One was from her lawyer in the city. The matter she had written of could be easily adjusted.

The next was in Miss Gage's fine, almost old-fashioned hand. Everything had gone on well, and she would come on Wednesday, prepared to go abroad, or anywhere at Mrs. Van Dorn's behest. A very suitable letter, but there was no suggestion of that wider living outside of her own home relations. She was an admirable companion, an excellent nurse for small ailments; she gave good value for what she received, but there was no refreshment of enthusiasm that had warmed her old heart toward this girl who seemed to rouse and stir one's thoughts, and give a breath of sweetness.

The third was from Mrs. Aldred, who would be glad to do anything for her relative. She was fond of girls, especially those who were bright and capable of advancement. She would insure her a home and training for the next two years, and fit her for either position, look after her clothing, and make her as happy as possible. Hers was in reality a home school. Her circle was complete with thirty boarders, all of whom were of unexceptional character, and Mrs. Van Dorn need not be afraid to trust her protégée at Aldred House, nor fear that any confidence would be misplaced.

She had meant to lay the matter before Helen this very afternoon, then she suddenly changed her mind. If the examination went against her, she would be the more grateful, if in her favor, it would be a card at Mrs. Aldred's. She would let the others plan, and amuse herself with upsetting their confident arrangements.

So they talked, instead, about places. Helen never tired of listening. Her vivid imagination pictured the scenes, while here she smiled a little, there her straight brows drew together in a little frown of condemnation, then the heroic appealed to her. It was so pretty to note the changes. Two years from this time would she be anxious about gowns and trinkets and frivolity of all kinds? Girls were risky creatures before their characters were really formed. Yes, it would be wise not to commit one's self too far to draw back, or substitute other plans.

"When is your old lady going away?" asked Uncle Jason, when he came in on Saturday. "Mother thinks she can't spare you more than next week. There's the house to clean, and the weddin' cake to make, and the children have to have new clothes, and goodness only knows all."

"But I was to have her a week in September," said Mrs. Dayton. "If Jenny is to be home——"

"Well, she'll be over to her house gettin' ready. We didn't make any such fuss when we were married. We got spliced and looked after things afterward. Well, Helen—how is it? I'm afraid you're 'most spoiled for living among common folks any more."

Helen's face was scarlet, as she glanced into this roughened sun-burned one.

"You've come to be such a lady," he went on admiringly. "Mebbe it wasn't for the best. You really ought to be somewhere else and grow up into the kind of women there is in stories. And your hands are so soft, there isn't a freckle in your face. There's mighty little Mulford about you!"

"Oh, Uncle Jason!" She flung her soft arms about his neck, immeasurably touched by the tone of his voice. Her eyes shone with the tenderness of tears. She laid her fond lips to his rough cheek with a delicate caress.

"Whatever comes," she began, after a pause, "remember that I do sincerely love you, and that I believe you would be willing to do the best for me if it was in your power."

"Your head's level there, child," with a tremble in his voice, and he kissed her fondly, a rare thing with him.

She watched him as he went down the path and climbed into the old wagon.

"I feel mean, and underhand, and deceitful," she cried passionately, turning to Mrs. Dayton. "I like to live along just on the square, and how the thing will ever get told, and whether Aunt Jane will let me stay, and whether it is all right, and why you should want things that seem out of your reach, and why someone should rise up and forbid you mounting the ladder that stands just at hand—oh dear!" and Helen burst into a flood of tears.

"You can tell it all next week. There's been nothing especially underhand. People don't usually get out on the housetops and proclaim the things they think of doing. And Mr. Warfield will be back. We shall all be ranged on your side."

"Poor Uncle Jason! And I haven't finished grating the corn for the fritters. The cold tongue looks splendid. And the cold chicken. Then we give people scalding hot fritters."

She was merry and arch again in a moment.

Sunday was soft and rainy, the sort of day one lounged about. Monday Mrs. Griggs came to wash, and as there were pears to pickle Helen helped with the ironing. Tuesday she trudged off to school with a beating heart. Louise Searing was there, one girl and two boys from the North Hope school who had been conditioned.

"I don't see what you can do if you do get in, Helen Grant," said Louise. "I'm going to stay with Betty all the week"—this was her married sister. "Or has Mrs. Dayton promised to keep you? That rich old lady is going away, isn't she? How did you like living out this summer? I went up in the mountains with ma. There were some young fellows and we had lots of fun."

"Hush!" said a teacher entering. Papers and pencils were distributed, the children placed far enough apart to prevent collusion. The lady took a seat at the desk.

Helen looked over her questions. Two were from the last year's list, she saw with joy, and she jotted down the answers carefully. The two problems she solved. The analysis rather puzzled her. One of the great seaports of the country, and of Europe. The notable travelers in Africa. Hannibal's journey across the Alps, his conquests and his stay at Brutium. Just a week ago they had been reading Hannibal's wonderful story, and his fifteen years' menace of Rome. How glad she was!

A rather stern looking man came in and took his seat by the lady. As the slips were finished they were signed and passed up. By noon Helen had answered five, when they were dismissed until two o'clock. As Helen passed across the room the lady signaled to her, and handed her three of the slips. She fairly clutched them in her hand and hurried away lest Louise should speak to her.

She did not dare open them. When she reached home, Mrs. Dayton was sugaring blackberries and placing the dishes on the waiter.

"Oh, Helen! You look roasted!"

"I walked so fast. Oh, will you look at these? I have not had the courage. I have done five, there are four more," she cried breathlessly.

"You poor child! Why, Helen, these are all right. It is splendid."

Helen dropped on a chair and wanted to cry from the sudden relief.

"You foolish girl, to prolong your anxiety. Here, take a fan and get some of the redness out of your face."

"I can't go in to lunch. Afterward I will go up and tell Mrs. Van Dorn. Please do not say a word about me," she entreated.

Joanna brought her a glass of iced lemonade, and she thanked her with overflowing eyes. Then she looked at the slips of paper and smiled. That was only three out of nine. What if the others should be adverse!

She had a little lunch in the far end of the kitchen by the open window, and quite recovered her spirits. It seemed as if the ladies would never get done talking over the table. Their loitering never fretted Mrs. Dayton, and Joanna had her lunch in the between time.

When the coast was clear she tripped upstairs smiling and steady of nerve, now.

"And it was so fortunate that we read about Hannibal," she exclaimed, joyously. "I knew, of course, that he crossed the Alps and menaced Rome, but if we hadn't read the history I should have been at a great loss to know just what to say. And one question about the Italian poets. It seems to me I have been learning all summer from you. I was a real ignoramus, wasn't I, except in mathematics. I owe you so much!"

She squeezed the soft wrinkled hands in hers, so plump and warm. Her heartsome cheery voice penetrated deeper into the poor old soul than anything had done in a long while.

She would owe her a good deal more in time. And she wondered about taking her abroad now. They could find teachers in plenty.

"Now I must go back to my four other questions. Just pray that I shall not fail anywhere."

"I have a feeling that you will succeed."

Two of the girls did not get through at four, but begged to stay, and it seemed hardly worth while to break another day, unless there were some new applicants. Helen remained. She saw her answers piled up by themselves. Then Miss Dowling beckoned her.

"You are an excellent student," she exclaimed, "and you have had a very fine teacher in Mr. Warfield. I think we must get him over here. You have missed only one question, and you go in with flying colors. I wish you were to be in my class, but I shall have to wait for you until next year. You live at the Center? You will have to come up to us."

The girl's eyes sparkled with delight at the commendation, and she expressed her gratification in a very pretty manner. Miss Dowling was exceedingly interested in her.

"I like those ambitious girls who are not puffed-up with vanity," she said to Mr. Steele. "Helen Grant. Do you know any Grants at the Center?"

"No. And the Center is the dullest of all the Hopes. We must find out about this bright and shining light. I'll take these papers home and look them over, and call around about nine."

Miss Dowling nodded.

"It's just too mean for anything!" declared Louise Searing. "I'm not sure that I shall even squeeze in, I've lost so many marks. I always did think Mr. Warfield was partial to you, and it isn't fair."

"I've been studying all summer," returned Helen.

"And working at Mrs. Dayton's. For goodness sake what did you do? And I can tell you it will make a difference with the real High School girls. Some here at North Hope are very stylish. So it is true you were out carriage riding half the time?"

The tone was unpleasant, half envious.

"I went out with Mrs. Van Dorn, and read to her, and did little errands. Her real companion comes to-morrow. And about the middle of September they are going to Europe."

"Oh!" Louise opened her eyes wide, rather nonplussed. Hope people did not often go to Europe. And if companions were taken, then it wasn't so bad to be a companion. Perhaps it wouldn't be wise to begin to snub Helen Grant just now.

CHAPTER VIII

MRS. VAN DORN'S WINNING HAND

Helen was sitting on an ottoman and leaning her arms lightly on Mrs. Van Dorn's knees that had a soft wrap thrown over them. She fancied she felt little twinges of neuralgia in them now and then; August nights were damp.

They had been talking about the successful examination. Helen had proved the heroine of the dinner hour. Mr. Pratt admitted that he could not have answered half of the questions. Mrs. Disbrowe said she went into the High School of her town on quite as good a record. Mrs. Lessing said she did not see the need of half the tests, or of College education for women. The most satisfying destiny for a woman was a good marriage and she was quite sure men didn't care for learned women.

"You have been a very nice, cheerful, ready girl all summer, Helen. You really have been a great pleasure to me," said the lady.

"I am very glad." Helen's voice was full of emotion, and she gave the wrinkled hands a soft caress. "It has been a delightful time to me. I am so glad Mrs. Dayton thought of me when there were so many nice girls in the world. It seems to me as if I was brimming over with happiness."

She could feel the thrill in the young hands. Ah, if she had found Helen just as she was now, ten years ago. But she was good for many years yet, and she would have her sweet young life, her charming womanhood.

"Would you feel very much disappointed if you didn't go to the High School?"

"Oh, I think now, it would break my heart."

"But if something better offered?"

"Oh, could there be anything better?"

"Can't you think of anything better?"

The girl was silent. In her narrow life there had not been much room for dreams of real betterment.

"Think, all around the world."

"Well," with a half laugh and a sound like a sigh not going very deep, "there would be travel all round the world. I hope some day to earn money enough to go—well I'll take London first. Then Paris, but I do not believe I shall want to stay there long, for you see I shall not have a great deal of money. And then Rome, dear delightful Rome, with all its old haunts, where its poets have lived and died. And that isn't half, is it? Is any life long enough to see it all?"

Her face was in a glow of enthusiasm, her eyes deep and luminous.

The woman had not begun very early in life and she had seen a good deal of it. She had heard hundreds of people wish for things, but very few who were willing to earn them, like this girl who had so little envy in her composition.

"Suppose someone would say to you, here is a school where you can be taught all the higher branches as well, music, drawing, painting, literature and all the pretty society ways that make one feel at home in any company. Would you go?"

"Oh, that is like a fairy dream," and she laughed with charming softness. "Why, I am afraid to look at it lest I should want it."

"That isn't answering my question."

She raised her face and studied the one above her. It was wrinkled and the eyes were a faded blue-gray. She did not guess the eyebrows were penciled, the lips tinted, that the hair just a little sprinkled with white had come from the hair-dresser's. The curious asking expression transfixed her.

She drew a long breath. "Why, that would be wonderful to happen to a poor girl who is thinking how she can work her way along. It would be like a glimpse of heaven. I should be crazy to refuse it."

Mrs. Van Dorn took both of the warm, throbbing hands in hers. "Listen," she exclaimed. "I like you very much. When you first came, I thought only of a little maid to wait upon me, and run up and down and stay with Joanna when I wanted to be alone. I was rather curious to know whether you understood what you were about when you recited 'Hervé Riel.' You have a great deal of natural or inherited intelligence—your father was a scholar. If you were two or three years older, I should take you abroad with me and finish you on the Continent, that is, if you had not too much self-assurance that growing girls arrogate to themselves so easily. But that is not to be thought of at present—it must be some dream of the future. You need real education and you are capable of assimilating the higher part of it. I should like to send you to a school I know of where you will get the best of training. And if you develop into the girl I think you will, there may be a future before you better than any of your vague dreams."

"Oh! oh!" and Helen Grant buried her face in Mrs. Van Dorn's lap and cried, overcome by a new and strange emotion. If the elder had followed her impulse she would have lifted the face and kissed it with the passionate tenderness that was smoldering in her soul, and had never been satisfied. But her experience in people had been wide and varied, she was suspicious, she could not trust easily, and here were at least two years that would go to the shaping of this girl's character. Might she not care largely for what the money would give her?

"My dear! my dear!" she began in a muffled sort of tone from contradictory emotions.

Helen raised her face of her own accord, and her eyes were like the sun shining through a shower.

"Oh, what must you think," and her voice had a broken tremulous sound, yet was very sweet. "I didn't see how anyone could cry for joy—but I am learning something new all the time. Are you in very earnest? Would you take me with you if I were older and knew more? And would you like to have me trained and made into the kind of girl that suited you?"

"A girl proud and honorable and truthful, sincere and grateful——"

"Oh, I would try to be all that. It seems almost as if I had been deceitful to Uncle Jason, not to tell him about the High School, but I was not sure of passing, and not sure that I could work my way through. And sometimes I don't tell Aunt Jane things because I know she would make such a fuss, and they are not bad in themselves, and often don't come to pass. But I hate falsehoods. It makes me angry when they are told to me."

Mrs. Van Dorn smiled at the impetuosity.

"But you would give up the High School for this other plan? You would be willing to go away among strangers, and trust me for the future? I will provide everything for you, you will not have a care, only to study and do your very best, and take care of yourself. Even if you should decide to teach rather than travel about with me, you would be at liberty to choose."

"I should choose you," she said frankly. "Oh, how can I thank you for anything so splendid! There are no words good enough."

She kissed the wrinkled hands fervently.

"The thanks will be your improvement. Westchester is a beautiful place, with mostly educated people. Mrs. Aldred, who is a connection, is a lady in the truest sense of the word. You will learn what the higher class girls are like—some are fine, some under a charming and well-bred exterior you will find full of petty meanness. I should hate to have you mean, grudging. I want you to keep broad, unselfish; though sometimes you will get the worst and the smallest measure in return. And you will be quite content to leave your people?"

A serious sweetness overspread Helen's countenance.

"If I had a mother who loved me, such a mother as Mrs. Dayton would make, I am afraid I would not want to leave her. Oh, I know I wouldn't," decisively. "But Aunt Jane never liked my father, and I think she didn't care much for my mother. Their desires and ideas are so different from mine, and they care very little for education, yet they are all good and kindly, and Uncle Jason is really fond of me, I think. But it seems as if when one had neither father or mother to be disappointed, one might choose what one liked best, if there was nothing wrong in it."

How did the girl come by so much good sense and uprightness?

"Then you will accept my proffer?"

"Oh, I can hardly believe anything so good can come to me. I feel as if I were dreaming." She looked up uncertain, yet her eyes were dewy sweet, her lips quivering.

"We will make it better than a dream. But we will have to disappoint your Mr. Warfield."

That gave Mrs. Van Dorn a secret gratification. She was jealous of two people who had come into Helen Grant's life, this man and Mrs. Dayton.

"Yes; he will be sorry, I know. But then he could not be my teacher, as he was last year. And, oh, how proud he will be that I passed so splendidly."

"And I shall be glad when you attain to other heights. I really think you will not need any urging. But don't go too deep in the abstruse subjects, and don't let anyone spoil your fashion of reading, for I may want you to read to me in the years to come."

"I shall be glad to do anything for you," the girl replied with deep feeling. "I wish I might spend years and years with you to repay all this generosity and kindliness. Oh, why do you go away?"

She flushed with an eagerness, a glow of excitement that gave her a frank, bewitching sweetness.

Why did she go? Mrs. Van Dorn had gone over the ground by herself. She had been tempted to settle herself for life, but did she want to help tone down the crudeness of the untrained nature, to prune the enthusiasms, to find little faults here and there? She would rather someone else would do the gardening, and she have the bloom in its first sweetness. While she was away Helen would idealize her still more, and be prepared to give her just the same girl-worship, but with more discrimination. She would think of nothing but the benefits. She would see none of the whims and queernesses that Clara Gage had grown accustomed to. She would not note her growing old every day. And then she had a longing for a change.

"Well, I had planned to spend the winter in the south of France. It is supposed to be better to have an entire change every few years. I spent one winter there. I had not been quite up to the mark, and it improved me wonderfully. Then, I have made most of my arrangements."

"But you will come back?" beseechingly. "I may not stay the whole two years. You think you will feel quite satisfied to go to Aldred House? You will be among strangers, but girls soon get acquainted. Of course, I could board you here, and have you go to the High School, but it would not be as well, and it would not make the sort of girl out of you that I should like as well, for two excellent reasons," smiling a little. "What is it?" as a grave expression touched Helen's face.

"You have the right to decide. I know I should like best to go away, but perhaps it will make some trouble for you. I think my aunt——"

"I shall have a talk with Mr. Mulford when he comes in on Saturday. A man is generally master of his house. And I will see how the plan appears to Mrs. Dayton. She is a very sensible person."

She had a talk with Mrs. Dayton that very evening. She would give Helen her two years' schooling, and then she would be old enough and capable of deciding what she would like to do for the future. If she should prefer to take up teaching, that kind of training would be necessary afterward. She had some fine capabilities, and it would be a pity not to make the best of them.

So Mrs. Van Dorn very clearly defined her own position in the matter, without betraying her full intentions.

"If she doesn't get spoiled," commented the listener with an odd smile. "It is a very generous proffer, and I believe Helen is capable of appreciating it to the full. It would be a hard thing for her to remain here and work her way through school, though I had a plan for easing it up somewhat. She is above the ordinary run of girls, though I didn't think of that so much when I asked her to come here. The qualities that decided me then were her cheerfulness and her readiness. I do not believe her aunt half appreciates her."

"She is of a little different kind," returned Mrs. Van Dorn. That lady possessed much cynical enlightenment as to the kinds. "There is a deal of talk about goodness in this world, and even an east wind may be good for something, but it isn't pleasant. You find an immense deal of narrowness in these old country places. Saturday when Mr. Mulford comes I want to have a talk with him."

Mrs. Dayton was really glad that the first explanation was not to come from her.

Miss Gage arrived the next day at noon. She was a quiet, sensible-looking girl, who might have posed for a very attractive one, if she had known how to make the best of herself. She had a fine clear complexion, quite regular features, an abundance of soft, light brown hair, and a slim, graceful figure. But she had begun life weighting herself up with care, and made many little things a matter of conscience that were merely matters of choice. She was honest to a fault, obliging, and with that rare gift of being serviceable. At first Mrs. Van Dorn had been much pleased with her, but she was too proud to accept many favors, and her heart was centered in her own family; perhaps selfishly so.

Helen seemed released from almost every duty, and was glad to devote her time to Mrs. Dayton.

"I should like to know what Mr. Warfield will think of the plan," commented the lady.

"Oh, he will hold up both hands for me to go," laughed Helen. "Everybody will, but Aunt Jane."

The boarders were all out Saturday afternoon; a party had gone picnicking to a pretty, shady nook on the Piqua River, where a little decline and a bed of rock made a dainty waterfall. So Mrs. Van Dorn and Mr. Mulford had the end of the porch to themselves.

She stated her plan in a very straightforward manner. For two years she would send Helen to school, assuming all the expense. After that the girl might take her choice as to what she would like to follow, and she would be willing to assist her in any pursuit for which she was best fitted.

Mr. Mulford gave a long whistle, and stared at Mrs. Van Dorn. There was something so amusing in his surprise that she could hardly refrain from smiling.

"Well, I swow! You must think a mighty sight of her, ma'am, to be willing to spend that money out and out, when she could get her schoolin' right here for nothin'."

"I think of her capabilities. She is ambitious, and can fill an excellent place in the world."

"She's a smart girl in everything, but the book learnin' she takes from her father. Mother's missed her quick handy ways about the house, and I'm afraid she won't agree to givin' her up. And back there, ma'am, I used a word not strictly orthodox, and I'm a deacon of the church. But I was so took aback."

Mrs. Van Dorn nodded her pardon. "You see," she said quietly, "that it isn't quite as if she had been given to you. Her father might have returned and taken her. Then, when a child is fourteen she is allowed to choose her guardians. I shall stand in that capacity for the next two years. I shall arrange matters with my legal man in New York, so that, even if anything should happen to me she would have her two years at school. People lose their wits, sometimes."

"I don't believe you will lose yours. You're wonderfully well kept," he said with blunt admiration. "Well, I d'know as we could do anything if we wanted to. Mother's had other plans for her, but the child didn't fall in with them. She was mighty glad to come over here. There isn't much Mulford about her," with an abrupt sort of laugh. "We never just got along with her father, but he was a good enough sort of man. We've tried to do by Helen as one of our own, and Mother would now. But I can't think it would be quite right to stand in the child's way."

"No, it would not," decisively. "She has her life to live, and you can't do that for her. She has some fine natural gifts which it would be a sin to traverse. I will have my lawyer draw up an agreement that you will not interfere during the next two years——"

"But are we not to see her?" he interrupted, quite aghast at the prospect.

"Yes; you may visit her, and she can spend her vacations at home, and write as often as she has time. I should change my opinion of her if she was glad to go away, and forget you altogether. I am sure, then, I could not trust her gratitude to me," she said decisively.

"No, ma'am, that you couldn't," he subjoined earnestly. "Helen isn't that kind, I'm sure. And we wouldn't like to have her go out of our lives altogether."

"I should not desire her to."

"But, ma'am, after she's had all this fine living and everything, I'm afraid we'll seem very common. You don't think she'd better go to school here, and keep nearer her own folks?"

"Well, the other plan seems best to me. But after she has tried it a year, if she doesn't like it she shall be at liberty to come back to Hope."

"That's fair, I'm sure. Thank you, ma'am. And I don't just know what to say, only that I think it's mighty generous of you, though she's welcome to my home and all I have. I've never grudged her a penny."

"I am sure of that. Will you explain the matter to your wife? The agreement will come next week. And at the last I shall take her to New York to be fitted out with clothes. If there is any point you do not quite understand I shall be very willing to explain."

He rose in a dazed kind of fashion, and made an awkward bow, then went round to the kitchen end, where Helen had been sorting over blackberries.

"Oh, my child," he cried with a new tenderness. "I can't bear to think of your going away!"

Helen gave a long, sighing breath, then smiled.

"Miss Gage is to be taken to Europe, and her folks are willing," she subjoined.

"And this place isn't so far away. You can write and come home in vacation."

Then he would consent. She felt relieved that there was to be no argument.

"What do you think Aunt Jane will say?" she inquired, clasping his arm.

"Well, she'll be mighty set against it. I'll have a hard row to hoe when I go home. There'll be weeds of last year and year before," laughing brusquely. "I wish the old lady had to tackle her."

"But I don't. Aunt Jane says a good many things at first that she doesn't mean. It's the wrong side of something full of seams and knots, but when you get it turned out it is ever so much smoother."

"You're right. You're just right. You've quick sight in a good many things, Helen, and I should hate awfully to have you spoiled, and get so grand you'd look down on us. Mother aint much for book learnin', and Jen's as smart as a steel trap, if she is ours. Oh, and there's the wedding. Why I don't see how we can do without you," and he looked really alarmed.

"Perhaps I won't have to go so soon." Somehow she was almost afraid she wouldn't go at all. It was one of the happenings that seemed too good to be true, too wonderful for her.

"Well, I must get along. Mother'll wonder what kept me."

"And, oh, Uncle Jason, don't ever feel afraid that I shall forget you, and all your goodness."

Helen flung her arms around his neck and kissed his rough cheek tenderly.

"No, my girl, no. I should hope not. We'll hear soon, I suppose. And you will come over."

"Yes." Helen felt a little conscience smitten. She could go over and spend Sunday, but he did not ask it, and she did not proffer. She could imagine the time there would be, and oh, she would so much rather be out of it.

Mrs. Van Dorn said he was much more amenable to reason than she had feared. She explained about the agreement, and her plans to go the last of next week. Helen was transfixed with amazement.

Monday afternoon Mr. Warfield made his appearance. Miss Gage had gone out with Mrs. Van Dorn. Helen was very glad to have Mrs. Dayton explain the proposal, and point out its advantages.

"I don't like it," he exclaimed brusquely. "And you didn't take the examination?"

"Oh, yes, I did, and it was splendid! I'll show you the papers. But why don't you like it?" apprehensively.

"If you are going to teach in a public school, the discipline and advantages of the public school education are immeasurably the best. I don't like boarding schools except for the high up people who care most for accomplishments. And I have been thinking it over, and had a plan to propose to Mrs. Dayton."

"My schooldays seem a great perplexity all around," said Helen with a dubious sort of laugh.

"I do suppose Helen could have worked her way through. I had decided to give her a home, or her other expenses if a pleasant home offered. I would much rather not have her put on the level of a domestic. We may have some very fine theories on this subject, but Helen would have many snubs to endure. And if she resolves to learn what is useful, she will learn it as well there."

"But the experience will be so different. And two years will fit her for just nothing at all. Every year more real education is demanded. I am studying up for a college degree myself."

"Oh, dear!" Helen sighed lugubriously.

"Then, here, I should have had an oversight of your studies, and kept you up to the mark."

"I am resolved I won't fall below anywhere," she replied resolutely; yet there were tears in her eyes.

"But you don't know what the standard will be."

"Don't be discouraging, Mr. Warfield. Helen, go and get your papers," interposed Mrs. Dayton.

"Is that old body going to have Helen trained for a lady's maid?" Mr. Warfield asked in an imperious manner; his lips touched with a bit of scorn.

"You don't do her justice. At the end of two years Helen will be free to choose her future course. She will be only sixteen then."

"And spoiled utterly. Full of airs and graces. She is too fine a girl to be made a sort of puppet. There wasn't a girl in my class equal to her, and some had had much better advantages. I should not want her to go on living with the Mulfords."

Helen returned bright and eager, proud of her success as she handed him her examination papers. But Mr. Warfield would not be reconciled to the boarding school plan, and when he saw Mrs. Van Dorn step out of the carriage in her fine attire, he felt that he hated her; that she was an officious old body.

CHAPTER IX

DIFFERENT STANDPOINTS

Helen would have been figuratively torn to pieces if she had spent Sunday at the Center. Uncle Jason's first resolve was that he would wait until Sunday afternoon before announcing the conspiracy. The more he thought of the plan the greater the benefit to Helen seemed. She was different from the Mulfords, and she had no Cummings blood in her veins. She had changed these few weeks of her sojourn with Mrs. Dayton. Not that she had grown consequential. Indeed, she had never been more simply sweet than on this afternoon.

She would hate the shop dreadfully. And after all the three dollars a week she would earn the first year, would not more than pay for her board and clothes. Jenny had gone at it with a vim. But she hated books. The only thing that interested her was arithmetic. Uncle Jason could not put it in words, but he could feel it.

The supper passed off without any squabbles. Sam and Jenny walked down to the house, the children were tired and went to bed, and Aunt Jane came out on the porch to take a turn in her rocking chair and fan herself cool. But the wind blew up, and she did not even have to fan.

"Did you ask whether Helen would come home next week? Polly Samson comes two days to make Jen's wedding gown, and she'll be married on the sixteenth. We've got along wonderfully the last fortnight, and I begin to see my way clear. Dear, how I shall miss Jen, but I'm glad she'll be so near by. And she bid 'em good-by at the shop to-day. Reely's getting to be quite a help. I don't know but it was better for her to have Helen away in vacation."

Uncle Jason felt this was the golden opportunity. The lovers would not be home until about ten. It took some courage. He cleared his throat, listened a moment to the crickets, and then plunged into the subject; blurting it all out before Aunt Jane could recover her breath. In fact there was such an awful silence he wondered.

Then the storm descended. He smoked his pipe and listened, though he heard the crickets with one ear, he would have said. And when he did not make an immediate answer, she said angrily:

"You never consented to any such tomfoolery!"

"In the first place," he began slowly, "we couldn't keep Helen against her will. Her father didn't make us guardians. At fourteen she can choose. She isn't bound to us, and we haven't any real claim on her——"

"Except common gratitude," Aunt Jane flung out.

"We've taken care of her a few years. I dare say there'd be people in North Hope who would take a smart girl like Helen and pay her three dollars a week. Mrs. Dayton thought she might stay there and go to the High School before that other offer come along. And Warfield thinks it would be dreadful not to give her a chance at school when she could earn it for herself. She doesn't want to go in the shop——"

"As if a girl of fourteen knew what she wanted!"

"Jenny did, and you agreed with her. I was awfully took by surprise when old lady Van Dorn first snapped this onto me, but Helen and Mrs. Dayton were so much in earnest, and then drivin' home I kept thinking it over. If someone offered to take Sam and teach him store business, and he had his heart set upon going, and it was a good chance, I don't believe it would be right to oppose him. It's just the same with Helen."

"And have her stick up above us and despise us! She's had pride enough, and I've tried to break her of it. I just wish I hadn't let her go at all. She'll be unthankful and full of conceit, and she never shall go with my consent."

Uncle Jason kept silence, which was very irritating. Aunt Jane went over the ground again, growing more dogmatic at every step. Then the young people returned.

"Goodness sakes, mother, what are you scolding about?" cried Jenny. "They can hear you half a mile away."

Then the story had to be gone over again.

"Well, I declare! I don't see that it's anything to get mad about," said Jenny sensibly. "Why, it's—it's just splendid! Pop, don't you think she ought to go? And if she likes teaching better than anything else, for goodness sake, let her teach! I'd rather go out washing. And a girl who don't like it in the shop won't get along. Helen hasn't quite the right way with her. She's on the Grant side of the fence. My! The idea! That old lady must have taken a smashin' fancy to her. And she has sights of money, folks say. Maybe she'll leave her something in the end, and she's quite old."

"I'm fairly stumped!" declared Sam. "Mother, what's the reason you don't want her to go?"

"Mother's afraid she'll put on airs, and crow over us. Goodness! Let her, if she wants to. I'm going to have a good home, and a good husband," squeezing Joe's hand, "and she may crow over me as much as she likes. It won't hurt me a bit. And if you undertake to keep her home she'll be cranky, and you'll wish you hadn't."

They were all on Helen's side. Mrs. Mulford could not make any headway and went off to bed in high dudgeon. All day Sunday she carried about an injured look, and said she had reached the time of life when her opinions were of no account, after all she had done, and where would anyone have been without her thrift and judgment?

On Monday Jenny helped wash and iron, and sang about the house. She told her mother the matter wasn't worth minding. Tuesday, Polly Samson came with three new patterns of wedding gowns, and fairly alive with the wonderful news that a rich old woman boarding at Mrs. Dayton's was going to adopt Helen, and send her away to school.

The next afternoon the carriage came over with Mrs. Van Dorn, Mrs. Dayton, and Helen, and the agreement. Certainly Mrs. Van Dorn's part sounded very generous. For the next two years she would provide wholly for Helen, and keep her at school, but she would be free in the summer vacation. After that Helen must decide her course. Mr. Castles, the lawyer, vouched for Mrs. Van Dorn. The Mulfords were to visit her whenever they chose.

"I don't agree to any of this," said Mrs. Mulford, in her most severe tone. "I don't believe in girls being brought up above their station. We're just plain farmer people, and Helen's our kin, though if she was on the Cummings' side, I'd have some voice in the matter. Mr. Mulford's willing, and if it turns out bad, and she grows up proud and lazy, and ashamed of honest labor, 'taint my fault. I wash my hands of it all," and she fairly wrung them out.

Helen's face was scarlet.

Mrs. Van Dorn said in a very dignified manner, "Will you sign this, Mr. Mulford? You will see the money is in Mr. Castles' hands, and must be used for that alone. You can compel me to keep my word," smiling.

"I don't doubt you at all," said Mr. Mulford. "I'd trust you without the scratch of a pen."

"But that wouldn't be business."

Jenny brought in some cake, and some very nice root beer. If the ladies chose they could have a cup of tea.

Mrs. Van Dorn thought she would.

Then they talked about Jenny's wedding. Helen was to go to New York on Saturday, and on Friday of next week was due at Aldred House.

"I'm awful sorry you can't come to the wedding," said Jenny. "We're going away for a week, then we shall have a house-warming at my house. I'm going to be married at noon, so the relatives can get home before night. And I'm sure I wish you loads of good luck. It is just wonderful. Mother'll get over it, and be just as proud as anybody. Father thinks it just right, and Joe says it's like something out of a story book. He's fond of stories, and used to read them to his mother. I shan't mind his reading to me, for I'll sew and crochet."

"And I know you'll be happy, Jenny. I wish you all the good things. And I could—stay all night," hesitatingly.

"No, I wouldn't. Come over and spend Friday, then mother'll be in a better humor," laughing. "But father'll miss you dreadfully. He'd lotted on your taking my place. Well, we'll all miss you, but it's such a splendid chance. You'll let her come over on Friday?" to Mrs. Van Dorn. "Then my wedding gown will be done. It's white lansdowne. I thought I wouldn't splurge in silk or satin. Lansdowne will dye when it's soiled."

Mrs. Van Dorn promised for Friday, and they said their good-bys. Helen ran out to the kitchen porch, and kissed Uncle Jason.

"There were two votes against it," said Mrs. Van Dorn dryly. "I think I can understand your aunt, but I don't see the force of Mr. Warfield's reasoning. Your cousin seems a nice, sensible girl."

How the days flew! One of the neighbors took her over Friday morning. Joe and Jenny would bring her back. And she had a really happy time. Jenny took her down to the house, and it was attractively nice and comfortable, even if Jenny had tacked up some advertising pictures in her chamber, and the dining-room. There was an old-time door-yard with its long rows of flowers. Joe was a master hand for flowers. The vegetable garden was in excellent order, and did not look ragged, as gardens were wont to do in early autumn. There had been a second crop of several things, which betokened thrift on Joe's part. Yes; Jenny would be very happy. People were different, and the same pursuits and pleasures could not satisfy all alike.

"I'm glad you are going to that school, Helen. You would never have liked working in the shop. It's suited me well enough, because I've been thinking of the money. I have two hundred dollars in the bank in my own name, and Joe is going to let me have the butter and egg money. But I don't know how I'll keep busy all the time, though I can help mother with the sewing. She'd counted so much on you. And she thinks now——" Jenny looked at Helen, and laughed merrily, "that if Mrs. Van Dorn would put the money out at interest that she's going to spend on you the next two years, it would be ever so much better for you."

"No, it wouldn't," returned Helen decisively. "Beside, what good reason would she have for doing such a thing? She knows I am just wild for an education. There are so many splendid knowledges in the world," and the girl's face was brilliant with eagerness.

"You've changed some way, Helen. I guess you always were a little different, though." Jenny seemed studying her from head to foot. "You're taller. My, if you had on long skirts, you'd be a young lady."

"I just want to be a girl for ever so long. Mrs. Van Dorn doesn't want me grown up."

"And I went in the shop when I was only half-past fourteen," laughing. "I made mother let me wear long skirts, and when I was fifteen Joe began to come round and bring me home from cottage meeting and singing school, but his mother didn't like it a bit. She wouldn't have let him marry if she had lived, but I was willing to wait and that maddened her. Now if she'd been nice, I'd a' been real glad to have her round. And I say to mother, don't you be getting cranky and snappy so as no one will want to live with you when you get old. Isn't that Mrs. Van Dorn rather queer?"

"She is so bright and intelligent, and has traveled about so much and read almost everything. Why I've learned about countries and their government, and what they do at Washington, and about Congress and our own capital, and the cities and towns that have mayors, and boroughs, and villages."

"Oh dear, all that would set me crazy!" interrupted Jenny, holding up her hand in entreaty. "I guess you do take after your father. Well my life suits me best. Just imagine me marrying a man like Mr. Warfield! Why I shouldn't know what to do—I'd rather work in the shop and have fun with the girls. But if all these things suit you, you ought to have them, when they are offered out and out to you."

"I am glad you think so;" and she gave Jenny's arm a caressing little squeeze.

"And I do hope you won't get so big feeling that you will be too grand to notice us. I'd like you to come next summer in vacation and make me a nice long visit. I think I'll be able to stand book learning for a while;" with her rather boisterous laugh. "And oh, you won't forget to write to father."

"No indeed," with tender warmth. "I never loved Uncle Jason so much as this last summer, though he's always been good to me."

"And he thinks a mighty sight of you, I can tell you," returned Jenny.

Then they walked homeward. There was a great ado bidding Helen good-by. Aunt Jane gave her some severely good advice, which was quite superfluous, seeing that she would not recognize the change in the girl's life.

Uncle Jason put both arms around her and kissed her tenderly.

"Be a good, honest, truthful girl," he said in a rather broken voice, "and then all the learning in the world won't hurt you."

The next morning there were some more good-bys. Joanna's was really touching.

"There's a good deal of knowledge it's nice to have," she said, "but I think your pretty ways must have come natural. And you do beat all at drying dishes."

Mrs. Dayton felt almost as if she was giving up a child. Would it have been better for her to have remained at Hope?

She was really astonished at the commotion the event created. Wasn't it a great risk to have Helen Grant go off with a strange woman? Just as if schools in Hope were not good enough!

"I never saw anything wonderful in Helen Grant," said Mrs. Graham. "Mr. Warfield pushed her ahead when he should have been taking pains with others, and I'll venture to say he helped her out with that examination. She couldn't have gone to the High School anyhow. And Jason Mulford is as stuck up as a telegraph post over her luck. We'd all laugh if it fell through in a year!"

As for Helen there were several days of living in absolute fairyland. The Hotel was a veritable palace to her, the ladies, queens and princesses. As for the stores they were beyond any description, only she thought they had been rehearsed in "Walks about Paris," but she was sometime to see the difference.

Mrs. Van Dorn displayed excellent taste in selecting Helen's wardrobe. It was simply pretty, fit for a girl in the ordinary walks of life. Her measurements were left with madame, who, from time to time would send her what was suitable and necessary.

She had been such a charming companion that Mrs. Van Dorn really hated to give her up. If she were only two or three years older! Her enthusiasms were so fresh and infectious, her health was so perfect, her readiness, her pleasant temper, the pretty manner in which she took any check or counsel, appealed curiously to the worn old heart still hankering after something all its own, that should exhilarate and bring her back to some of the freshness of youth. Two years. Well, there were women who lived to ninety-six, or even a hundred. She would take good care of herself and have this enjoyment in her later years.

Miss Gage took Helen to Westchester. It was a beautiful town with old trees and old substantially-built houses. It was the county town also, and twice a year presented quite a stirring aspect. The inhabitants were refined and intelligent. Four different denominations had churches. A lovely winding river ran on one side, full of suggestive nooks, dividing it from a neighboring State. A smaller one ran nearly through the center, crossed by several rustic bridges. Toward the east there was a rather high bluff going up, a woody sort of crest, and on this stood Aldred House, though it fronted on Elm Avenue. There were two terraces, and two short flights of steps to reach it, and a great wide veranda where a Virginia creeper and honeysuckle were burnishing their leaves in the sun.

"Oh," sighed Helen with a long indrawn breath and luminous eyes, "tell Mrs. Van Dorn that I shall be perfectly happy here, I know I shall."

And Mrs. Van Dorn wondered when the message was repeated. Youth was easily caught by newness. What if Helen should be weaned away by other friends? And there were girls born students who could not be satisfied unless with some profession or business. What if she should be one of these? The jealous old heart wanted all of her, all of the Babylon she meant to build with its pleasant gardens and fascinating nooks of variety. Well, Helen had cared for her old uncle, and she, Mrs. Van Dorn would be a hundred times better to her.

The reception room was cozy, with one open bookcase, some pictures, a great oriental jar full of trailing clematis and blazing sumac branches. Mrs. Aldred came in, a rather tall, sweet-faced woman with a voice that won at once, and a manner that had a welcome in it.

"I am very glad to have you come, and glad that I could oblige Mrs. Van Dorn in any way. I hope you will soon feel at home," she exclaimed.

"Oh, it is so lovely everywhere! And the journey for the last mile or two where you caught glimpses of the river, and in one place a great pile of rocks big enough to shelter some of the old Norse gods was enchanting. We have only one poor little river at home and there is but one really beautiful place in it. And I am sure I shall like to live here."

An enthusiastic girl, thought Mrs. Aldred. A fine, intelligent face also, perhaps too romantic.

Miss Gage gave her few charges and said good-by, as she was to catch a return train. It was early afternoon. Several of the scholars had arrived and were settling their rooms. Then Helen's trunk came up. Mrs. Aldred had been taking her through the long parlor on the opposite side of the hall, and the dining room, where instead of one long table, several small ones were cozily arranged. Back of this, toward the bluff, was the schoolroom, and the study room, with several small ones for recitations.

"I wonder if you would like best to be alone in a room or have a companion?" questioned Mrs. Aldred. "I sometimes give girls a choice."

"I like folks," returned Helen, frankly. "That is——" pausing rather confusedly.

"If they are agreeable?"

"Yes," said Helen, smiling.

"I will give you a room where you may have a companion if you like. Some girls get homesick at first if they are alone."

"Oh, I shall not be homesick," she exclaimed with gay assurance.

Up the broad staircase they trooped, though there were two smaller ones convenient to many of the rooms. There was a long corridor with small rooms opening on the one side, and a cross hall leading to those in front. In the double rooms were screens arranged to insure as much privacy as one cared for. A white bed, a sort of closet with book-shelves above, a bureau and dressing table, a wardrobe built in the wall, a wicker arm chair and a rocking chair, with a large hassock and a small one.

"Now," said Mrs. Aldred, "when your trunk comes you will empty it and put your clothes away, and the servant will take it to the trunk room."

It came up in a few moments. Then Mrs. Aldred left her with some kindly wishes.

Helen went to the window. It overlooked the southwest. There were tops of trees, then a depression that was the river, and over beyond fields golden in the sunshine,—that was the stubble of grain, others a dull brown with here and there a bit of green weed pushing up sturdily since the hay had been cut, young winter wheat over beyond, houses, farms, rising ground again and woodlands. Far over to the westward were the grand hills of another State. It was so much more beautiful than all the Hopes with their levels.

This wonderful thing had happened to her. Hardly a year, indeed it was at the beginning of the present year that Mr. Warfield had gone at her rather fiercely, she thought, and told her there was no use of dawdling and that she must pass for the High School.

"But I can't go to the High School," she had protested. That looked impossible.

"No matter, you can pass," he had said so sternly that she wondered why people must be cross when they were so much nicer in a pleasant mood.

Then Aunt Jane began to talk of next year when she should be through school. She roused suddenly, she "took hold" as people say and found that life meant something. Perhaps it was the growth out of childhood, the development of mind; country children were not analytical. She began to wonder about things, to ask questions that pleased Mr. Warfield and tormented Aunt Jane, and all these events, more than had come in the thirteen and a half years before, had happened in this little space of time. Eight months only.

"Oh dear, I wonder if things, incidents, come this way to all girls. I wonder if there is a time when you wake up," and she looked steadily at the sky with its drifts of gray white clouds as if it could answer.

"Well, I do suppose Jenny woke up, too. She wanted to go in the shop and earn money. Sam doesn't seem very wide awake, though he means to learn a trade. Yes, I think there must be diverse gifts. Oh, it's just glorious here! I wish Mrs. Van Dorn could know."

She did know one day before she sailed and her heart thrilled with a warmth it had not known in a long while. Clara was serene, useful, patient, but she did lack enthusiasm.

There were steps and voices, gay laughs, some new girls had come, some old ones rushed out to welcome them. Helen turned and saw her trunks and began to devote herself to unpacking. There was a best hat in a compartment. She opened the wardrobe door and on the shelf were two hat boxes. That was settled. The small articles she laid on the rug, and lifted out the tray. Then came the gowns and skirts, the shirtwaists and all the paraphernalia. She found places for them. But here were two very precious belongings, the Madonna she had once coveted, and a tall vase of roses with a few fallen leaves so natural that one felt inclined to brush them off. There was also an extremely fine photograph of Mrs. Van Dorn. Of course the artist had done his best and turned back the hand of time; she was not over fifty that day.

Helen was much interested in "settling." There were hooks for her pictures, so she stood up on a chair and hung them. There were several pretty table ornaments, her writing desk with its outfit.

Some one tapped at the partly-opened door. She found a bright rosy-cheeked girl with a fluff of golden red hair, and a laughing face.

"You are one of the new girls," exclaimed a merry voice. "I'm Roxy Mays, not half as hard as my name sounds. In full its Roxalana. I've tried several other ways of shortening it, but they are delusions and snares. I was named after a rich old great-aunt, she was my sponsor and consented to promise I should renounce everything desirable. Why is it that rich people have such ugly names and are always wanting to perpetuate them, or do you get rich on an ugly name? There ought to be some compensation. Now—have you any objection to stating yours before supper time?"

"Mine is Helen Grant."

"Oh, that is splendid and strong and easy to call. There was Helen Mar, and Helen of Troy, and several other famous Helens. Well, I like your name to begin with. Are you going to be a doctor?"

"A doctor!" Helen gave a little shudder.

"Oh, that settles it. You haven't the courage for all you look so brave. Two of our last year's graduates have chosen that walk in life. One goes to New York bound to work her way through, the other to Wellesley. Seven years of study, think of it and weep!"

"But if she loves to study?"

"Depravity of taste. Spider, ask in this timid fly hovering about your gates," and as Helen stepped back with a gesture of the hand Miss Mays entered and glanced around, though she kept on talking. "Do you like getting settled, and are you not bothered about the right places?—oh," with almost a shriek—"you have that lovely Bodenhausen Madonna! I have the Sichel and I never can decide which I like best. And then Gabriel Marx, and Dangerfield! We're not hopelessly modern, for I have the Sistine. Nearly every girl has it. And oh, who is this handsome woman? A Duchess at the very least!"

"That is—a dear friend," Helen flushed. "That must have been taken when she was younger. She is quite old now."

"Elderly. There may be old men and old peasant women in pictures, but the living women are simply elderly. Well, one wouldn't mind growing old if one could look like that. Have you ever been away at school before?"

"No," returned Helen.

"North, South, East or West? Brevity is the soul of wit. I sometimes set up for a wit when I can do it on a small capital."

"Rather southerly from here," laughed Helen. "A little country place called Hope Center."

"Hope Center. Helen Grant. Well that has a sound! You will do. What else are you going to put up?"

"I haven't anything else."

"That's delightful. Most girls bring so much from home, to cry over. You don't really look like the crying kind. And school girl treasures accumulate fearfully. It's nice to have a place to put the new ones."

She had a small photograph of Mrs. Dayton in her writing desk. There had not been any keepsakes to bring.

"Won't you come and be introduced to some of the girls? They are in Daisy Bell's room."

"Wouldn't I——" she hesitated.

"Be an intruder? Oh dear no. The sooner you get over these things the better. Come!"

Helen's first day at Aldred House.—Page 192.

She took Helen's hand and led her to a room two or three doors down. The screens had been pushed aside. On one bed sat two girls, two others were hanging pictures and spreading bric-a-brac on brackets and shelves. One of the girls was still in short skirts, and Helen felt secretly glad. This was Daisy Bell.

"Oh, thank goodness you're not grown up," cried Daisy, eyeing her from head to toe. "I wept, I prayed, I entreated for long skirts, and I couldn't move my mother, any more than the rock of Gibraltar."

"Well, you're not a senior. Why should you care?"

"How old are you, Miss Grant?"

"Past fourteen the last of June."

"Oh, how tall for that! I'm fifteen. But I have two older sisters, and they are always saying 'That child, Daisy,' as if I was about seven. How many sisters have you?"

"None. And no father or mother."

"You poor wretched orphan!"

"She doesn't look a bit wretched, Roxy Mays," said a girl who had been surveying her. "The juniors are all down there," nodding toward the lower end of the hall, "so you might have known she wasn't 'sweet and twenty.'"

"At what age do you begin to grow sweet so as to get ready for the twenty?"

"Oh, girls, don't let's hurry into the twenty. I'd like to stay sixteen three years, and seventeen four years."

"I wish they'd made the years longer. There could have been another month or two put in vacation time."

"What is Hope Center like?" asked one of the girls. "It doesn't sound like a city."

"It's the country, farms mostly. North Hope is the real town part, and quite pretty, with stores, and churches, and a library, and a small but nice park."