ich
I have not set down here. It had seemed an easy task to soothe the
child. If there had been any absurdity like that my mother hinted at,
would she--could I-- No, never! She was a careless child, with fits of
coldness, imperious tenderness and generosity. Not a woman at all. The
idea was quite distasteful to me that Helen was a grown-up woman with
whom I must be on my guard.

However, Helen's manner to me next day and at all times was calculated
to assure any man that she was a wilful, self-sustained young creature
of extraordinary beauty and grace, who was devoted to her father, and to
him alone. I saw Thorpe one evening pick up, by stealth, the petals of a
crimson rose which had dropped from the stalk that still nestled in the
black ribbon at her throat, and I laughed at him for his pains as he
laid them carefully away in his pocket-book.

"Miss Floyd," said I, "here is another rose. Don't honor that poor
skeleton of a vanished flower."

She saw the accident which had befallen her rose, and took mine from me
and replaced her ornament with a fresh blossom. "Give me the poor stem,"
said I as she was about to throw it away.

"What is that for?" she asked, staring at me as I placed it in my
buttonhole. "What do you want of the poor old thing?"

And, mistrusting some mischief beneath my sentimental behavior, she was
quite tart with me the entire evening, and would not speak to Thorpe at
all, but sat demurely between my mother and Mr. Floyd, her eyes nailed
on some embroidery, and behaving altogether like a spoiled child of
twelve years old.

Georgy Lenox had returned from her visit at Mrs. Woodruff's, and seemed
a little quiet and weary of late. I was not so much at her service as
before, but had begun to console myself by teaching in song what, like
other young poets, I had experienced in suffering. I thank Heaven that
no eyes but my own ever beheld the tragedy I wrote that summer: still,
I am a little tender-hearted over it yet, and believe that it was, after
all, not so bad as it might have been. At any rate, it enabled me to
find some relief from my passionate unrest in occupation, and even my
own high-sounding phrases may have taught me some scanty heroism. After
all, if one fights one's own battle bravely, does it make so much matter
about other things? Our battles to-day, like the rest of those fought
since creation, show poor cause if regarded from any other standpoint
save the necessity of fighting them.