o him. It will serve to introduce you."

He watched her closely while he said this, but did not appear to do so.
Helen thanked him with some warmth.

"This is very good of you, Uncle Starkweather--especially when I know you
do not approve."

"Ahem! Sleeping dogs are much better left alone. To stir a puddle is only
to agitate the mud. This old business would much better be forgotten. You
know all that there is to be known about the unfortunate affair, I am
quite sure."

"I cannot believe that, Uncle," Helen replied. "Had you seen how my dear
father worried about it when he was dying----"

Mr. Starkweather could look at her no longer--not even askance. He shook
his head and murmured some commonplace, sympathetic phrase. But it did not
seem genuine to his niece.

She knew very well that Mr. Starkweather had no real sympathy for her; nor
did he care a particle about her father's death. But she tucked the letter
into her pocket and went her way.

As she passed through the upstairs corridor Flossie was entering one of
the drawing-rooms, and she caught her cousin by the hand. Flossie had been
distinctly nicer to Helen--in private--since the latter had helped her
with the algebra problems.

"Come on in, Helen. Belle's just pouring tea. Don't you want some?" said
the youngest Starkweather girl.

It was in Helen's mind to excuse herself. Yet she was naturally too kindly
to refuse to accept an advance like this. And she, like Flossie, had no
idea that there was anybody in the drawing-room save Belle and Hortense.

In they marched--and there were three young ladies--friends of
Belle--sipping tea and eating macaroons by the log fire, for the evening
was drawing in cold.

"Goodness me!" ejaculated Belle.

"Well, I never!" gasped Hortense. "Have _you_ got to butt in, Floss?"

"We want some tea, too," said the younger girl, boldly, angered by her
sisters' manner.

"You'd better have it in the nursery," yawned Hortense. "This is no place
for kids in the bread-and-butter stage of growth."

"Oh, is that so?" cried Flossie. "Helen and I are not kids--distinctly
_not_! I hope I know my way about a bit--and as for Helen," she added,
with a wicked grin, knowing that the speech would annoy her sisters,
"Helen can shoot, and rope steers, and break ponies to saddle, and all
that. She told me so the other evening. Isn't that right, Cousin Helen?"

"Why, your cousin must be quite a wonderful girl," said Miss Van Ramsden,
one of