, my dear, he knows EVERYTHING about you. I have been
particular in telling him all I know--and some things even YOU don't
know and couldn't tell him. For instance, that you are a very nice
person. Come, my dear, don't look so stupefied, or I shall really think
there's something in it that I don't know. It's not a laughing nor a
crying matter yet--at present it's only luncheon again with a civil
man who has three daughters and a place in the county. Don't make the
mistake, however, of refusing him before he offers--whatever you do
afterwards."

"But"--stammered Helen.

"But--you are going to say that you don't love him and have never
thought of him as a husband," interrupted the duchess; "I read it in
your face,--and it's a very proper thing to say."

"It is so unexpected," urged Helen.

"Everything is unexpected from a man in these matters," said the
duchess. "We women are the only ones that are prepared."

"But," persisted Helen, "if I don't want to marry at all?"

"I should say, then, that it is a sign that you ought; if you were
eager, my dear, I should certainly dissuade you." She paused, and then
drawing Helen closer to her, said, with a certain masculine tenderness,
"As long as I live, dear, you know that you have a home here. But I
am an old woman living on the smallest of settlements. Death is as
inevitable to me as marriage should be to you."

Nevertheless, they did not renew the conversation, and later received
the greetings of their host at Moreland Hall with a simplicity and
frankness that were, however, perfectly natural and unaffected in both
women. Sir James,--a tall, well-preserved man of middle age, with
the unmistakable bearing of long years of recognized and unchallenged
position,--however, exhibited on this occasion that slight consciousness
of weakness and susceptibility to ridicule which is apt to indicate the
invasion of the tender passion in the heart of the average Briton. His
duty as host towards the elder woman of superior rank, however, covered
his embarrassment, and for a moment left Helen quite undisturbed to gaze
again upon the treasures of the long drawing-room of Moreland Hall with
which she was already familiar. There were the half-dozen old masters,
whose respectability had been as recognized through centuries as
their owner's ancestors; there were the ancestors themselves,--wigged,
ruffled, and white-handed, by Vandyke, Lely, Romney, and Gainsborough;
there were the uniform,