esponsibility of getting
married." A touch on her third finger, and an indulgent bow, announced
that the lesson was ended. "I am not a clever man like you," she
modestly acknowledged, "but I ask you to help us, when you next see my
father, with some confidence. You know exactly what to say to him, by
this time. Nothing has been forgotten."

"Pardon me," I said, "a person has been forgotten."

"Indeed? What person?"

"Your sister."

A little perplexed at first, Miss Helena reflected, and recovered
herself.

"Ah, yes," she said; "I was afraid I might be obliged to trouble you
for an explanation--I see it now. You are shocked (very properly) when
feelings of enmity exist between near relations; and you wish to be
assured that I bear no malice toward Eunice. She is violent, she is
sulky, she is stupid, she is selfish; and she cruelly refuses to live in
the same house with me. Make your mind easy, sir, I forgive my sister."

Let me not attempt to disguise it--Miss Helena Gracedieu confounded me.

Ordinary audacity is one of those forms of insolence which mature
experience dismisses with contempt. This girl's audacity struck down
all resistance, for one shocking reason: it was unquestionably sincere.
Strong conviction of her own virtue stared at me in her proud and daring
eyes. At that time, I was not aware of what I have learned since. The
horrid hardening of her moral sense had been accomplished by herself.
In her diary, there has been found the confession of a secret course of
reading--with supplementary reflections flowing from it, which need only
to be described as worthy of their source.

A person capable of repentance and reform would, in her place, have
seen that she had disgusted me. Not a suspicion of this occurred to Miss
Helena. "I see you are embarrassed," she remarked, "and I am at no loss
to account for it. You are too polite to acknowledge that I have not
made a friend of you yet. Oh, I mean to do it!"

"No," I said, "I think not."

"We shall see," she replied. "Sooner or later, you will find yourself
saying a kind word to my father for Philip and me." She rose, and took
a turn in the room--and stopped, eying me attentively. "Are you thinking
of Eunice?" she asked.

"Yes."

"She has your sympathy, I suppose?"

"My heart-felt sympathy."

"I needn't ask how I stand in your estimation, after that. Pray express
yourself freely. Your looks confess it--you view me with a feeling of
aversion."

"