d's place,
"The Headlands," as it was usually called. He had been in the habit of
spending a few days of his vacations there for years, and was in a
position to enlighten Georgy about her distant cousin and mine, Helen
Floyd, Mr. Raymond's probable heiress. Perhaps he liked to tease Georgy,
yet it is possible that the little daughter of Mr. Floyd, growing up in
the quiet, stately place, really possessed something already to arouse
Tony's admiration for a child ten years old; but he would dwell upon her
beauty, her brilliant prospects in the future and the grandeur of her
present possessions, until Georgy was enraged with him. The train was
perhaps already laid in the mind of the young girl which led up to a
magazine of hatred and anger against more successful mortals, and needed
but a chance spark to light it. She made a rival of little Helen Floyd
at once, and every action of her life became infused with ambitious
desires to surpass her in some way. She besieged me with questions
concerning my guardian, his ideas, views, tastes and habits, and beset
me feverishly to use my influence to get her invited to The Headlands.

Mr. Floyd's visits became more and more frequent as the summer advanced,
and I began with some jealousy to notice a growing change in my mother.
In former times she had shown an exquisite poise of strength and peace
in every phase of her life, but of late she seemed possessed with a sort
of girlish fluttering and disquiet: her eyes were dreamy and her voice
softer and less decided in its inflexions, and her manner to me, instead
of continuing its old noble habits of command, became timid and
caressing, as if she were anxious to propitiate me. In the evenings,
instead of sitting among us boys on the piazza, she would leave us and
walk by herself under the laburnums in the garden; and if I followed her
and put my arm about her, I found, with vague pain and rebellion at my
heart, that although she amply responded to my tenderness, she had sweet
and sacred thoughts that she was smiling over all by herself. It had
been her wont to busy herself with housekeeping cares from morning until
night: our income was small, and she was very busy, for she gave thought
to everything and decided wisely upon the smallest matter. In these
duties she had found pleasant occupation apparently: she had shown no
fatigue, had marred nothing by impatience or over-haste--had judiciously
studied how to manage every detail of our liv