have seen her and spoken
with her. She is quite lady-like, and I am told well educated and clever
too.'

'She is very well educated and very clever,' Ericson said 'and as
well-bred a woman as you could find anywhere.'

'Does she go into society at all? I suppose not,' Helena said coldly.
She felt a little spiteful--not against Dolores; at least, not against
Dolores on Dolores' own account--but against her as having been praised
by Ericson. She thought it hard that Ericson should first have treated
her, Helena, as a child with whom one would agree, no matter what she
said, and immediately after launch out into praise of the culture and
cleverness of Miss Paulo.

'I don't fancy she cares much about getting into society,' Ericson
replied. 'One of the things I admire most about Paulo and his daughter
is that they seem to make their own life and their own work enough for
them, and don't appear to care to get to be anything they are not.'

'Is that her father with her?' Sir Rupert asked.

'Yes, that is her father,' Ericson answered. 'I must go round and pay
them a visit when this act is over.'

'I'll go, too,' Sir Rupert said.

'Oh, and may not I go?' Helena eagerly asked. She had in a moment got
over her little spleen, and felt in her generous, impulsive way that she
owed instant reparation to Miss Paulo.

'No, I think you had better not go rushing round the theatre,' Sir
Rupert said. 'Mr. Ericson will go first, and when he comes back to take
charge of you, I will pay my visit.'

'Well,' Helena said composedly, and settling herself down in her chair,
'I'll go and call on her to-morrow.'

'Certainly, by all means,' her father said.

Ericson gave Helena a pleased and grateful look. Her eyes drooped under
it--she hardly knew why. She had a penitent feeling somehow. Then the
curtain fell, and Ericson went round to visit Miss Paulo.

'Who has just come into the back of that girl's box?' Sir Rupert
asked--who was rather short-sighted and hated the trouble of an
opera-glass.

'Oh, it's Mr. Hamilton,' his daughter, who had the eyes of an eagle, was
able to tell him.

'Hamilton? Oh, yes, to be sure; I've seen him talking to her.'

'He seems to be talking to her now pretty much,' said Helena.

'Oh, the curtain is going up,' Sir Rupert said, 'and Ericson is rushing
away. Hamilton stays, I see. I'll go and see her after this act.'

'And I'll go and see her to-morrow,' were the words of his daughter.

In a moment