o," Helen said quickly.

John was still glowering at Miriam. "Take you away! You talk as if you
were a parcel!"

"I knew you would be angry," she said. "You've always been hard on me,
and you don't understand."

"Well, it's Helen's affair."

"You don't understand," Miriam said again. She sat close to Uncle
Alfred, and he patted her.

"Helen knows best," Lily said cheerfully, for she suspected what she did
not know. "And we'll look after her. Come along, John. It's time we all
went to bed."

"He'll grumble all the way home," Miriam said with a pout.

Rupert was still talking to the doctor: they had found some subject to
their taste, and their voices sounded loudly in the quiet house. Helen
had gone out to speak to Zebedee's old horse.

"Now, tell me what's the matter," Uncle Alfred said.

"Didn't Helen tell you?"

"No."

"Well," she swayed towards him, "the fact is, I'm too fascinating, Uncle
Alfred. It's only fair to warn you."

All the strain had left her face, and she was more beautiful than he had
remembered, but he now looked at her with the practical as well as the
romantic eye, for his middle-aged happiness was to depend largely on
this capricious creature, and for an instant he wondered if he had not
endangered it.

"Probably," he said aloud.

"Aren't you sure of it?"

"Er--I was thinking of something else."

"That," she said emphatically, "is what I don't allow."

He looked at her rather sternly, bending his head so that the eye behind
the monocle was full on her. She would never be as charming as her
mother, he reflected, and with a start, he straightened himself on the
thought, for he seemed to hear that remark being uttered by dull old
gentlemen at their clubs. It was a thing not to be said: it dated one
unmistakably, though in this case it was true.

"We must have a talk."

"A serious one?"

"Yes."

She looked at him nervously, regardless of her effect. "Will you mind
taking care of me?" she asked in a low voice.

"My dear child--no."

"What is it, then?"

"I am trying to frame a piece of good advice. Well--er--this is the kind
of thing." He was swinging the eyeglass by its string. "Don't go out
into the world thinking you can conquer it: go out meaning to learn."

"Oh," Miriam said drearily. This meant that he was not entirely pleased
with her. She wondered which of them had changed during these months,
and characteristically she decided that it was he.

"Are you certain