could not of course be slighted. The next day
Isabel Varce came up and talked a while; later, Mrs. Bannert and the
others followed. Gregory Dexter was with aunt and niece frequently; and
Miss Vanhorn was pleased to be very gracious. She talked to him herself
most of the time, while Anne watched the current of the new life round
her. Other men had been presented to her; and among them she thought she
recognized the Chanting Tenor and the Poet of Helen's narratives. She
could not write to Helen; the eccentric grandfather objected to letters.
"Fools and women clog the mails," was one of his favorite assertions.
But although Anne could not write, Helen could smuggle letters
occasionally into the outgoing mail-bags, and when she learned that Anne
was at Caryl's, she wrote immediately. "Have you seen Isabel Varce yet?"
ran the letter. "And Rachel Bannert? The former is my dearest rival, the
latter my deadliest friend. Use your eyes, I beg. What amusement I shall
have hearing your descriptions when I come! For of course you will make
the blindest mistakes. However, a blind man has been known to see
sometimes what other people have never discovered. How is the Grand
Llama? I conquered her at last, as I told you I should. With a high
pressure of magnanimity. But it was all for my own sake; and now,
behold, I am here! But you can study the Bishop, the Poet, the Tenor,
and the Knight-errant in the flesh; how do you like the Knight?"

"This place is a prison," wrote Helen, again; "and I am in the mean time
consumed with curiosity to know _what_ is going on at Caryl's. Please
answer my letters, and put the answers away until I come; it is the only
method I can think of by which I can get the aroma of each day. Or,
rather, not the aroma, but the facts; you do not know much of aromas. If
facts were 'a divine thing' to Frederick the Great (Mr. Dexter told me
that, of course), they are certainly extremely solemn to you. Tell me,
then, what everybody is doing. And particularly the Bishop and the
Knight-errant."

And Anne answered the letters faithfully, telling everything she
noticed, especially as to Dexter. Who the Bishop was she had not been
able to decide.

In addition to the others, Ward Heathcote had now arrived at Caryl's,
also Mr. Blum.

In the mean time Miss Vanhorn had tested without delay her niece's new
knowledge of botany. Her face was flushed and her hand fairly trembled
with eagerness as she gave Anne her first wild fl