n't at all a bad sort, and they get on very
well and have three nice little boys; but I don't much take to her nor
she to me, so that I'm not much there any more.'

'And your mother?' Althea questioned, 'where does she live? Don't you
stay with her ever?' She had gathered that the widowed Mrs. Buchanan was
very pretty and very selfish, but she was hardly prepared for the
frankness with which Miss Buchanan defined her own attitude towards her.

'Oh, I can't stand Mamma,' she said; 'we don't get on at all. I'm not
fond of rowdy people, and Mamma knows such dreadful bounders. So long as
people have plenty of money and make things amusing for her, she'll put
up with anything.'

Althea had all the American reverence for the sanctities and loyalties
of the family, and these ruthless explanations filled her with uneasy
surprise. Miss Buchanan was ruthless about all her relatives; there were
few of them, apparently, that she cared for except the English cousins
with whom she had spent many years of girlhood, and the Aunt Grizel who
made a home for her in London. To her she alluded with affectionate
emphasis: 'Oh, Aunt Grizel is very different from the rest of them.'

Aunt Grizel was not well off, but it was she who made Helen the little
allowance that enabled her to go about; and she had insured her life, so
that at her death, when her annuity lapsed, Helen should be sure of the
same modest sum. 'Owing to Aunt Grizel I'll just not starve,' said
Helen, with the faint grimace, half bitter, half comic, that sometimes
made her strange face still stranger. 'One hundred and fifty pounds a
year: think of it! Isn't it damnable? Yet it's better than nothing, as
Aunt Grizel and I often say after groaning together.'

Althea, safely niched in her annual three thousand, was indeed
horrified.

'One hundred and fifty,' she repeated helplessly. 'Do you mean that you
manage to dress on that now?'

'Dress on it, my dear! I pay all my travelling expenses, my cabs, my
stamps, my Christmas presents--everything out of it, as well as buy my
clothes. And it will have to pay for my rent and food besides, when Aunt
Grizel dies--when I'm not being taken in somewhere. Of course, she still
counts on my marrying, poor dear.'

'Oh, but, of course you _will_ marry,' said Althea, with conviction.

Miss Buchanan, who was getting much better, was propped high on her
pillows to-day, and was attired in a most becoming flow of lace and
silk. Nothing less