son,--I am but a weak woman,--yet if I can be to
you--What can I say?"

What more could this poor, dear Helen say?

* * * * *

"Elbridge, harness the horses and take Miss Darley back to the school."

What conversation had taken place since Helen's rhetorical failure is
not recorded in the minutes from which this narrative is constructed.
But when the man who had been summoned had gone to get the carriage
ready, Helen resumed something she had been speaking of.

"Not for the world! Everything must go on just as it has gone on, for
the present. There are proprieties to be consulted. I cannot be
hard with you, that out of your very affliction has sprung
this--this--well--you must name it for me,--but the world will never
listen to explanations. I am to be Helen Darley, lady assistant in Mr.
Silas Peckham's school, as long as I see fit to hold my office. And I
mean to attend to my scholars just as before; so that I shall have very
little time for visiting or seeing company. I believe, though, you are
one of the Trustees and a Member of the Examining Committee; so that, if
you should happen to visit the school, I shall try to be civil to you."

Every lady sees, of course, that Helen was quite right; but perhaps here
and there one will think that Dudley Venner was all wrong,--that he was
too hasty,--that he should have been too full of his recent grief for
such a confession as he has just made, and the passion from which it
sprung. Perhaps they do not understand the sudden recoil of a strong
nature long compressed. Perhaps they have not studied the mystery of
_allotropism_ in the emotions of the human heart. Go to the nearest
chemist and ask him to show you some of the dark-red phosphorus which
will not burn, without fierce heating, but at 500 deg., Fahrenheit, changes
back again to the inflammable substance we know so well. Grief seems
more like ashes than like fire; but as grief has been love once, so it
may become love again. This is emotional allotropism.

Helen rode back to the Institute and inquired for Mr. Peckham. She had
not seen him during the brief interval between her departure from the
mansion-house and her return to Old Sophy's funeral. There were various
questions about the school she wished to ask.

"Oh, how's your haaelth, Miss Darley?" Silas began. "We've missed you
consid'able. Glad to see you back at the post of dooty. Hope the Squire
treated you hahnsomely,--liberal