en she whispered: "I may return to you after all,
mademoiselle. Do not forget me."

"The dear child!" said Jeanne-Armande, waving her handkerchief as the
carriage drove away. And there was a lump in her yellow old throat which
did not disappear all day.

CHAPTER XI.

"Those who honestly make their own way without the aid of fortunate
circumstances and by the force of their own intelligence. This
includes the great multitude of Americans."

--GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS.

"He is a good fellow, spoiled. Whether he can be unspoiled, is
doubtful. It might be accomplished by the Blessing we call Sorrow."

When the two travellers arrived at Caryl's, Helen was gone. Another
telegraphic dispatch had again summoned her to her frequently dying
grandfather.

"You are disappointed," said Miss Vanhorn.

"Yes, grandaunt."

"You will have all the more time to devote to me," said the old woman,
with her dry little laugh.

Caryl's was a summer resort of an especial kind. Persons who dislike
crowds, persons who seek novelty, and, above all, persons who spend
their lives in carefully avoiding every thing and place which can even
remotely be called popular, combine to make such nooks, and give them a
brief fame--a fame which by its very nature must die as suddenly as it
is born. Caryl's was originally a stage inn, or "tarvern," in the
dialect of the district. But the stage ran no longer, and as the railway
was several miles distant, the house had become as isolated as the old
road before its door, which went literally nowhere, the bridge which had
once spanned the river having fallen into ruin. Some young men belonging
to those New York families designated by Tante as "Neeker-bokers"
discovered Caryl's by chance, and established themselves there as a
place free from new people, with some shooting, and a few trout. The
next summer they brought their friends, and from this beginning had
swiftly grown the present state of things, namely, two hundred persons
occupying the old building and hastily erected cottages, in rooms which
their city servants would have refused with scorn.

The crowd of summer travellers could not find Caryl's; Caryl's was not
advertised. It was not on the road to anywhere. It was a mysterious
spot. The vogue of such places changes as fantastically as it is
created; the people who make it take flight suddenly, and never return.
If it exist at all, it falls into the hands of a