luously on every conceivable subject save the desired one. She
treated her to a dissertation on intaglii, to an argument or two on
architecture, and was fervently asking her opinion of certain recently
exhibited relics said to be by Benvenuto Cellini, when the door opened
and Anne appeared.

The young girl greeted her grandaunt with the same mixture of timidity
and hope which she had shown at their first interview. But Miss
Vanhorn's face stiffened into rigidity as she surveyed her.

"She is impressed at last," thought the old Frenchwoman, folding her
hands contentedly and leaning back in her chair, at rest (temporarily)
from her labors.

But if impressed, Miss Vanhorn had no intention of betraying her
impression for the amusement of her ancient enemy; she told Anne curtly
to put on her bonnet, that she had come to take her for a drive. Once
safely in the carriage, she extracted from her niece, who willingly
answered, every detail of her acquaintance with Helen, and the holiday
visit, bestowing with her own eyes, meanwhile, a close scrutiny upon the
black dress, with whose texture and simplicity even her angry annoyance
could find no fault.

"She wants to get something out of you, of course," she said, abruptly,
when the story was told; "Helen Lorrington is a thoroughly selfish
woman. I know her well. She introduced you, I suppose, as Miss Vanhorn's
niece?"

"Oh no, grandaunt. She has no such thought."

"What do you know of her thoughts! You continue to go there?"

"Sometimes, on Sundays--when she asks me."

"Very well. But you are not to go again when company is expected; I
positively forbid it. You were not brought down from your island to
attend evening parties. You hear me?"

"Yes."

"Perhaps you are planning for a situation here at Moreau's next winter?"
said the old woman, after a pause, peering at Anne suspiciously.

"I could not fill it, grandaunt; I could only teach in a country
school."

"At Newport, or some such place, then?"

"I could not get a position of that kind."

"Mrs. Lorrington could help you."

"I have not asked her to help me."

"I thought perhaps she had some such idea of her own," continued Miss
Vanhorn. "You can probably prop up that fife-like voice of hers in a way
she likes; and besides, you are a good foil for her, with your big
shoulders and bread-and-milk face. You little simpleton, don't you know
that to even the most skillful flirt a woman friend of some kind or
othe