pecooniary compensation,--hey? A'n't
much of a loser, I guess, by acceptin' his propositions?"

Helen blushed at this last question, as if Silas had meant something by
it beyond asking what money she had received; but his own double-meaning
expression and her blush were too nice points for him to have taken
cognizance of. He was engaged in a mental calculation as to the amount
of the deduction he should make under the head of "damage to the
institootion,"--this depending somewhat on that of the "pecooniary
compensation" she might have received for her services as the friend of
Elsie Venner.

So Helen slid back at once into her routine, the same faithful, patient
creature she had always been. But what was this new light which seemed
to have kindled in her eyes? What was this look of peace, which nothing
could disturb, which smiled serenely through all the little meannesses
with which the daily life of the educational factory surrounded
her,--which not only made her seem resigned, but overflowed all her
features with a thoughtful, subdued happiness? Mr. Bernard did not
know,--perhaps he did not guess. The inmates of the Dudley mansion were
not scandalized by any mysterious visits of a veiled or unveiled lady.
The vibrating tongues of the "female youth" of the Institute were not
set in motion by the standing of an equipage at the gate, waiting for
their lady teacher. The servants at the mansion did not convey numerous
letters with superscriptions in a bold, manly hand, sealed with the arms
of a well-known house, and directed to Miss Helen Darley; nor, on the
other hand, did Hiram, the man from the lean streak in New Hampshire,
carry sweet-smelling, rose-hued, many-layered, criss-crossed,
fine-stitch-lettered packages of note-paper directed to Dudley Venner,
Esq., and all too scanty to hold that incredible expansion of the famous
three words which a woman was born to say,--that perpetual miracle which
astonishes all the go-betweens who wear their shoes out in carrying a
woman's infinite variations on the theme, "I love you."

But the reader must remember that there are walks in country-towns where
people are liable to meet by accident, and that the hollow of an old
tree has served the purpose of a post-office sometimes; so that he has
her choice (to divide the pronouns impartially) of various hypotheses to
account for the new glory of happiness which seemed to have irradiated
our poor Helen's features, as if her dreary li