head.'

'Would you first tell me,' I said, 'how Cousin Agnes is? It was a good
deal about her I didn't understand?'

'Much, much better,' he replied, 'thank God. She is going to be almost
well again, I hope.'

And then, before I knew what I was about, I found myself in the middle
of it all--telling him everything--the whole story of my unhappiness,
more fully even than I had told it to Harry and Kezia, for though he did
not say much, the few words he put in now and then showed me how
wonderfully he understood. (Cousin Cosmo _is_ a very clever man.)

And when at last I left off speaking, _he_ began and talked to me for a
long time. I could never tell if I tried, _how_ he talked--so kindly,
and nicely, and rightly--putting things in the right way, I mean, not
making out it was _all_ my fault, which made me far sorrier than if he
had laid the whole of the blame on me.

I always do feel like that when people, especially big people, are
generous in that sort of way. One thing Cousin Cosmo said at the end
which I must tell.

'We have a good deal to thank Harry for,' it was, 'both you and I,
Helena. But for his manly, sensible way of judging the whole, we might
never have got to understand each other, as I trust we now always shall.
And more good has come out of it, too. I have never known Harry for what
_he_ is, before to-day.'

'I am so very glad,' I said.

'Now,' said Mr. Vandeleur, looking at his watch, 'it is past five
o'clock. I shall spend the night at the hotel at Middlemoor, but I
should like to stay with you three here, as late as possible. Do you
think your good Kezia can give me something to eat?'

'Of course she can,' I said, all my hospitable feelings awakened--for I
can never feel but that Windy Gap is my particular home--'Shall I go and
ask her? Our tea must be ready now in the dining-room.'

'That will do capitally,' said Cousin Cosmo. 'I'll have a cup of tea now
with you three, in the first place, and then as long as the daylight
lasts you must show me the lions of Windy Gap, Helena. It _is_ a quaint
little place,' he added, looking round, 'and I am sure it must have a
great charm of its own, but I am afraid my aunt and you must have found
it very cold and exposed in bad weather?'

'Sometimes,' I said; 'the last winter here was pretty bad.'

'Yes,' he answered, 'it is not a place for the middle of winter,' but
that was all he said.

I was turning to leave the room when another thought struck