“London, “July 4th, 1867.

“My dear Helen, “You are positively the most wretched correspondent it was ever my lot to encounter. Three months, and not a line. Papa has heard from your papa once or twice I believe during that time, but you had not the grace to enclose a line to your very respectable friend and monitress. Now this morning when I woke at about four o’clock I said to myself: ‘Positively I must get a letter from Helen Norman today, and if I do not — well, I renounce her acquaintance till we meet on the shores of Styx, on which occasion I shall certainly find an opportunity of disputing precedence with her in the matter of embarking upon old Charon’s boat.’ And why should I be so positive of a letter today? For no less a reason than because it is my birthday! To-day I attain the dignity of seventeen! You who are still at the kittenish stage of sixteen, do you not involuntarily bow before my grandeur, and wonder how you can have been so neglectful of your duty as to leave me ungreeted under such circumstances?

“Yes, I am seventeen. Papa has made me a wonderful present, nothing less than the most delightful little pony you ever saw in your life, an absolute darling of a pony! When he gave it me he said, in his usual way: ‘Now, Miss Maud, I am not throwing away money on you for nothing, you understand. If I go to the expense of buying you a pony, it is that you may ride about and show yourself.’ ‘And why should I show myself, papa dear?’ ‘Why? To get a husband as quickly as possible, Miss Gresham, of course! You don’t think I’m going to have you upon my hands till you’re an old maid, do you?’

“That is papa’s way of talking, you know. I really am afraid I don’t quite understand papa sometimes. Now when he was saying that to me, he was so serious in face and tone that anyone else could not but have believed that he quite meant it. And yet I know, of course, that he was only in fun. The idea of my being married just yet! Of course I shall be married some day, you know, Helen; that I have very firmly decided in my own mind. But who it is to be, I am very far from knowing. Indeed I am not at all sure that I have formed an ideal yet. Let me see. I think the man I shall marry will be rather old; yes, notwithstanding your horror at such an idea; I think he must be oldish. You see I am rather old for my age, myself, and I could never endure a husband who would seem to me younger than myself, as I am quite sure any man would do who was not at least thirty. Then he must be a staid and sober individual. No Romeo or anything of the kind will do for me. For you know, Helen, or you ought to know, that myself and Miss Lydia Languish are as unlike as possible. If a suitor wrote a piece of poetry to me, it would ruin his chance for ever. No; he must be, as I said, a grave and sober gentleman, with not less than ten thousand a year, subscribing freely to public charities and all such useful institutions, a chairman at numerous committees, a member of Parliament, in short a highly useful man in every sense of the word. Ornamental he by no means need be, though of course I should not care to have an absolute Bruin. On the other hand I should detest an Antinous. In the first place I should be jealous of every lady he spoke to, and secondly I should be much too proud of him and make him most horribly conceited. It is my idea of married life to exist in a perfect calm; all such things as scenes, of any kind, I should avoid to the utmost. All this, I must tell you, is not quite original, for the husband I have sketched is just the kind of man that papa has frequently said I ought to choose when the time comes. But, as I said, I have such dreadful difficulty in determining, at times, whether papa is in earnest or not.

“But what a foolish girl I am to be writing on such subjects to a mere child. No, Helen, you shall not deceive me. For all that your portrait represents you as being as tall a￡ myself and just about twenty times as good looking, and that your letters read as though written by an experienced novelist of I don’t know how many years old, you shall not persuade me to consider you as more than a child. Remember it is not many months since you were sixteen, think of that and be humble.

“Talking of portraits, papa has just finished painting mine, and — what do you think? — seriously talks of sending it to the Academy next year! Unfortunately it was too late for the present exhibition. I will describe the picture to you. I am sitting at a solitaire-board, to begin with, my right hand just raised in the act of moving a glass marble from one hole to another. My dress is a very light blue, and, as I am painted in full length, shows my taste in such matters very admirably. I tell papa, too, that, if he exhibits the picture, he ought to charge Mdlle. Gateau, of Regent Street, a handsome sum in return for the advertisement, having it stated in the catalogue by whom the dress was made. I confess I look very creditably. My fingers, to which, of course, special attention is attracted, are of absolutely wonderful delicacy, almost transparent. Then my hair is a marvel of ingenuity. I did it up in imitation of Miss E——, the celebrated singer, and flatter myself that I improved upon the original. Altogether the picture is, I am assured, and well believe, a highly attractive piece of work. A gentleman last week offered papa two hundred pounds for it! But the gentleman is not after my taste, though my picture seems to suit his. He is a great fop, and only twenty-two!

“Now I know what your first remarks will be when you read all this. You will say: ‘What a dreadful thing to be painted in such a frivolous attitude! Why not be represented as drawing, or reading, or at least embroidering?’ Well, it was papa’s choice. He always says that if women are not ornamental they are nothing, and that they should always be associated with the hours of relaxation, and not those of work. He has no belief whatever in the heroic woman, laughing to scorn women’s rights, and speaking almost as disrespectfully of that schw?rmerei of which you are yourself such an exalted instance.

“But I must conclude, and, as usual, reserve for the last paragraph the little quantity of sense which my letters contain. Be assured, dear Helen, that though papa makes fun of a woman’s enthusiasm, I am, in reality, very far from doing so. Though I consider worldly prudence and good sense my strong point, yet I am by no means without moments in which I realise much the same feelings as those that you so admirably express in your, alas! too short letters. I hope you take it, as I mean it, for one of the truest signs of my friendship that I write to you the first things that come into my head, leaving you to divine the background of serious feeling which they conceal. But you really must write a line. Surely you are not so absorbed in your French, and your German, and your Italian, and your I-don’t-know-what, that you cannot spare a few minutes to pen a word or two! Now I calculate upon a speedy reply.

“Your loving friend, “Maud Gresham.”

On the morning following the despatch of this letter, Maud received a short note from her friend, enclosed in a longer letter to Mr. Gresham

“Mentone.

“Dearest Maud, “I have only time to write a line. Papa has suddenly been taken most seriously ill. He caught a severe cold the other day by an unfortunate accident, and I fear this is the result. He has asked me to write to Mr. Gresham, begging him, if possible, to come to us at once. I am afraid to think why he makes this request. Pray urge your papa to come.

“With love, dear Maud, “Helen Norman.”

The letter to Mr. Gresham was written in most pressing terms, and admitted of no delay. Maud added her entreaties, and Mr. Gresham set off the same evening for the South of France. On arriving at Mentone he found that he had not come a moment too soon. Mr. Norman, it appeared, had been pursuing his favourite pleasure, that of boating, and had, through some carelessness or other, been capsized. He had saved himself by swimming, but was almost immediately after attacked by a most violent cold, which all precautions had been unable to prevent. This, acting upon his already almost worn-out constitution, rapidly laid him prostrate, with little hope of ever rising from his bed again. In this condition the artist found him, so reduced that he could not stir, and quite unable to speak above a whisper. The sight of his old friend seemed to revive him, and in a private interview he informed the latter that, with characteristic procrastination, he had put off from time to time the making of his will, but that he desired to perform the duty immediately, being convinced that he was upon his death-bed. Mr. Gresham undertook to fulfil the office of executor, and the will was forthwith made.

Two hours after completing its dictation, Mr. Norman sank into unconsciousness, from which he never revived, save very partially for a few moments at a time. Before the end of the third day after his friend’s arrival he died.

The greater part of his property he left, of course, to Helen, who was to become the ward of Mr. Gresham, seeing that she had none but distant relatives on her mother’s side, and those in very humble circumstances, whilst on her father’s side absolutely no relation remained living.

Under these circumstances, Helen might very fairly consider herself an heiress. There were also legacies to Mr. Gresham and his daughter Maud. Last of all came an item very characteristic of the testator. He made over to his executor the sum of ￡5,000 in the 3 Per Cents., with the following instructions: —

He desired Mr. Gresham to do his best to discover whether Arthur Golding was still living, and, if by any chance he should find him, to pay to him on his attaining the age of twenty-one the said sum. Till such date the interest was to be drawn by Mr. Gresham, to cover any expenses that might be involved in the search; in the event of Arthur having been already discovered, might, if the executor saw fit, be applied to his use. If by the end of the year 1875 (to leave a fair margin), all efforts had met with no success, the sum to be employed for the benefit of any charity to which his executor might think fit to devote it.

Thus did Mr. Norman satisfy his conscience by bequeathing to another the performance of what he had always considered as a duty, and yet had never possessed sufficient energy to undertake.

It now remained to decide with regard to Helen’s future. The poor girl was severely afflicted at her father’s death, and begged to be allowed to remain a few months at least amid scenes which had hitherto possessed such happy, and had now acquired such mournful associations.

As her health seemed to advise this course Mr. Gresham readily acceded to the request, and it was arranged that Helen should live in the house of a very agreeable French family with whom she had long been acquainted. In the course of the autumn she was to return to England, when her future movements could be discussed at her guardian’s house.

Early in October Mr. Gresham returned to Mentone to fetch Helen back to England, and this time Maud accompanied him. They remained in the South of France about a fortnight, and then started back.

It was rather more than four years since Helen left her old home, and she had greatly changed in the interval. If anything, she had slightly the advantage of Maud Gresham in height, and her excessive slimness made her appear even taller than she was. She had never been a robust child; but during the last few months grief had wasted her to a shadow. Her face was more beautiful than ever, for hers was a style of beauty which gained rather than lost by a marble paleness.

As she entered Mr. Gresham’s drawing-room in the long black dress which she had travelled in, and, throwing back her veil, disclosed a face suffused with tears and smiles, which the excitement of the moment called forth, no one could have supposed her younger than the very compact yet elegant young lady who stood at her side; when they stood together it was Maud who appeared the child.

Upon Helen’s face rested a sweet seriousness which bespoke a nature at once exquisitely refined, susceptible to keen emotion, and strong in the power of suppressing its outward signs when it appeared most fitting to withhold them from observation. Her forehead bore the unmistakable impress of thought superior to her years; her eyes had a clear directness of expression which seemed to pierce to the truth through all barriers of form, and irresistibly claimed respect from all upon whom they rested; her lips were rich in the grace of female modesty and tenderness. Her walk had not altered; it was, as it had always been, that of a queen. Unconscious dignity was present in every movement.

To a stranger her bearing might at first have appeared haughty; those who knew her soon learned that this was the mere outward expression of a loftiness of soul which made itself manifest in every word she spoke and every act she performed.

Maud soon discovered that a great change had passed over her friend’s mind in the period since her father’s death. A few minutes’ conversation sufficed to show her that this was not the same Helen who had written such ardent letters, brimful of enthusiasm for all that is beautiful, and good, and true. The ardour was now suppressed, and it was something more than grief that had effected the change. Maud was not long in discovering the explanation of this. Helen had become devout.

In one of our earliest chapters we had an opportunity of seeing the kind of religious instruction which Mr. Norman was in the habit of affording his child as often as her eagerness in questioning compelled him to touch upon the subject. Otherwise, if not compelled by her curiosity, he avoided the subject, fearing somewhat, if the truth must be told, her premature power of thought and observation. The result of this was, that up to the time of her father’s death Helen had thought little, if at all, on religious subjects. The fact that she had never known a mother doubtless contributed to make this possible, and the completeness with which her days were occupied in various studies gave her abundance of matter for thought in her leisure hours. But, as might reasonably have been anticipated, the suddenness of her bereavement acted as a powerful stimulus to those seeds of devotional piety which are present in the heart of every woman, and which usually receive numberless impulses by fructification long before the age at which Helen had now arrived.

What sectarian Christians would style a conversion took place in her mind. Of a sudden she became discontented with the occupations of her life. It came upon her with the force of a revelation that she had hitherto lived in absolute neglect of the veritable end of existence, namely, devout prayer and praise to the all-powerful Being, upon whose existence she had as yet scarcely reflected, but whom she now conceived of, with all the energy of a powerful imagination, as the distinct and personal God.

This attitude of mind was confirmed by the circumstance that the French family with whom she went to live were strictly religious. That their religion was Roman Catholic did not prevent Helen from being strongly impressed with their zealous fervour, and she forthwith commenced the performance of the duties of her faith with an ardour which marked her conduct whatever she undertook.

Her friends, who had long known her intimately, clearly observed the change, and were inspired with an eager hope that it might be the means of affording them the power of converting her to their own faith. To this end they forthwith began unobtrusively to exert themselves, and also secured the aid of a curé in their self-imposed task.

But the girl remained firm against their persuasions, which even had the result of rendering her more ardent than ever in the cultivation of her Protestantism. Her days were passed in the perusal of religious books, in self-rebuke for her sins of omission and commission in the past, in the contemplation of a future to be devoted to charitable deeds; whilst her nights were passed in prayer, the early dawn sometimes finding her still upon her knees, or bending over her Bible.

No wonder, under such circumstances, that she grew thin and pale. The old childlike enthusiasm had by this time well-nigh forsaken her; her excess of zeal compelled her to look with disapproval on the subjects which had occasioned it. The energy of her nature now exhaled in ecstasies which none were witness of, save her midnight lamp.

Mr. Gresham and his daughter agreed in strongly condemning this state of affairs, and before many days had passed began to unite in an attack upon what they esteemed Helen’s self-destructive asceticism. They knew well that to attack it openly would only defeat their own object, so they proceeded by means of distractions to which Helen could scarcely refuse to consent without appearing ungrateful.

They arranged excursions into the country, in which they were joined only by one or two quiet friends; they spent mornings all together in the museums and the art-galleries; they induced Helen to read aloud occasionally in the evening from books which Maud knew had once been favourites of hers, and Mr. Gresham began to give her lessons in oil-painting.

Concession in these particulars at first caused the pious girl acute pain, and many secret hours were spent in tears after some unusual backsliding; but by degrees the remedy began to prove effectual, and those who practised it were rewarded by seeing a very gradual, but still very evident, improvement in Helen’s spirits, an improvement which before long began to affect her bodily health.

Helen had at length become so far weaned from her habits of solitude as to voluntarily request that she might pay a visit to Bloomford. She had in reality secretly longed to see the place of her birth ever since she had been in England; and now that the spring had once more come round, she was quite unable to resist the vivifying influence of the fresh west winds and the attractions of all those green country scenes, which the sight of the parks coming into life, again called so strongly to her mind. As the distance was comparatively short, it was arranged that Helen and Maud should undertake the journey alone, going early in the morning and returning the same evening.

At about eleven o’clock they found themselves before the gates of the Rectory. The house had not altered in outward appearance; but a group of young children playing, or rather squabbling, together on the lawn, reminded the visitors of the change in its occupancy. Passing up the walk, they rang the door bell and requested to see Mr. Whiffle.

They were shown into the drawing-room, which was furnished precisely as Mr. Norman had left it, but which was scarcely as tidy as it might have been, and as it always was in the days of Mrs. Cope’s dominion.

Whilst waiting for the rector’s appearance Helen kept her veil down, and Maud could hear her in vain endeavouring to suppress a sob, occasioned by the memory of old times. She had just time to give her friend’s hand a reassuring pressure when Mr. Whiffle entered.

He looked shorter than ever, probably because he had begun to contract a somewhat portly habit of body, and his hair was just as red and just as stubborn as ever. He wore spectacles now, and strutted about with a more dignified gait than he had previously exhibited; but he still retained the old habits of running his fingers through his coarse red hair, and of rising and falling on his toes as he discoursed. His voice had acquired a slightly nasal twang, probably due to attempting to make his crow-like note subservient to the purposes of intonation.

On entering the room he bowed, and requested to be informed in what way he could serve his visitors.

Maud was somewhat more prepared for a speech than Helen, and accordingly replied —

“We are two old acquaintances, sir, who, I much fear, have outgrown your recollection. Of me you had never more than a slight knowledge; but my companion is a very old friend of yours, indeed. Her you will probably recognise.”

The rector gazed in a puzzled manner from the speaker to Helen and back again, and for some moments was entirely at a loss. But the sight of Helen’s mourning seemed at length to stimulate his memory, and his face gradually brightened as the idea gained power over his mind.

“Upon my word! — Ha! — No! — Yes! It must be. I do believe this is Miss Norman! And this —? Upon my word I cannot recollect.”