and texture seemed added to
cheek and lip, and the old imperious concentration of her glance was,
for the moment, quite gone. Still, although I could easily see that she
was frightened at her own temerity in allowing my more than brotherly
freedom, I could not find it in my heart to repent it.

"Where is my mother, Helen?" I asked, taking her hand in mine to
reassure her, for I saw that something was embarrassing her very much.
"It seems I was not expected to-day?"

"Not so late as this," she explained; and presently I was talking freely
with her, and she was listening without a particle of self-consciousness
in her manner. It appeared that my mother and Mr. Floyd had gone out to
drive, but would presently return to tea--that my mother had been
longing for me, and they had all wondered why I had delayed coming. This
was all very pleasant, uttered in the sweetest voice by my young
hostess, and when she asked me if I would go out and see the sunset from
the terrace, it was very easy to say that I would follow her anywhere.

She was a shy child still, I discovered, despite her tall figure, her
pretty womanly shape and elegant air. My manhood was too recent a
possession not to be rejoiced in when I saw that a woman's blushes came
and went as she felt the weight of my glance. We went out of doors and
saw the surges breaking on the shore, but the waves seemed happy that
night, and lisped joyfully like children at their play. There was no
voice of sorrow in all Nature: the birds circling about their nests
began glad strains, then hushed them only to break forth again into
fresh confused and joyful beginnings which they were too sleepy to
finish. We talked of sorrow and loss, yet I think neither of us was very
sorrowful, although Helen's tears flowed unchecked as she poured forth
the simple narrative of her grandfather's last days--how he had never
been so tender, so self-forgetful, as then; how he could not do enough
to show his deep love for her; and then how, in the night, all at once,
without a last look, word or caress, he was gone and his tenderness was
but a memory.

"I felt at first," said Helen, "as if there were no longer anything for
me to do in the world. It seemed a treason to poor grandpa that I saw
how beautiful the crocuses were as they blossomed in the beds on the
terrace here, and when the mayflowers came I did not dare to pick them
except to put them on his grave. Then, you know, as not even papa knows,