nd she told her Helen did not get off on Monday.
What in the world does that mean? I do dislike to see the child so
changeable. I suppose she wants to wait and go with Lois, after all? But
why didn't she make up her mind before she started? And all this talk
about getting back to her husband! Oh, these young wives,--they don't
mind leaving their husbands!"

"Yes, she's back," said the rector gloomily.

"What do you mean?" Mrs. Dale asked quickly, for his tone did not escape
her.

Then he told her the whole story. There was a moment's silence when he
had finished. At last Mrs. Dale said violently, "Well!" and again,
"Well!" After that she rose, and brushing the clippings of paper from her
black silk apron, she said, "We will go and talk this over in the parlor,
Archibald."

The rector followed her, miserably. Though he had a clear conscience, in
that he had treated the ridiculous affair with the utmost severity, and
had done all he could to make Helen return to her husband, he yet
trembled as he thought how his sister would reproach him. ("Though I
can't help it!" he said to himself. "Heaven knows I used every argument
short of force. I couldn't compel a reluctant wife to return to an
unwilling husband, especially when she thinks the husband is all right.")
"You see, she approves of Ward," he groaned.

Mrs. Dale sat down, but the rector walked nervously about, jingling some
keys in his pocket.

"It is very distressing," he said.

"Distressing?" cried Mrs. Dale. "It is worse than distressing. It is
disgraceful, that's what it is,--disgraceful! What will Deborah Woodhouse
say, and the Draytons? I tell you, Archibald, it must be put a stop to,
at once!"

"That is very easy to say," began Dr. Howe.

"It is very easy to do, if there's a grain of sense in your family. Just
send your niece"--

"She's your niece, too, Adele," he interrupted.

But Mrs. Dale did not pause--"back to her husband. You ought to have
taken her yesterday morning. It is probably all over Ashurst by this
time!"

"But you forget," objected Dr. Howe, "he won't let her come; you can't
change his views by saying Helen must go back."

"But what does it matter to her what his views are?" said Mrs. Dale.

"It matters to him what her views are," answered Dr. Howe despondently.
Somehow, since he had begun to talk to his sister, he had grown almost as
hopeless as Helen.

"Then Helen must change her views," Mrs. Dale said promptly. "I have no
pa