owledge."

"I have half a mind to say I will go, no matter what stands in the way,"
and Helen smiled vaguely. If one _could_ see into the future.

"Perhaps your friend may send you."

Helen wondered whether she would dare propose it.

Once a week she went out to the farm. Aunt Jane had "cooled down" a
little, for Uncle Jason had said, "If you can't get along, mother, I'll
hire someone through the heat of the summer. Nancy Bird would come in a
minute. As for thinking to put Helen to housework, washing and ironing
and all that, when someone else is taking care of her, I don't see as it
would be just the thing, no more than to call Sam home when Mr. Bartow
has given him a good lay."

"I don't see as Helen is any better than my girls, and they are going to
be brought up to work. Her father didn't make out much for all his
education."

Helen did have some nice visits with Jenny, who was rather more modern
and broader minded than her mother. She kept her house with some system,
of course, there was no one to disarrange her methods. She was blithe
and cheerful and eager to get along, but she and Joe went off driving
now and then, and she listened with slow-growing interest when he read
aloud to her.

But altogether, Helen was not sorry when she found herself on the way
back to school. She had a warmer feeling than ever for Mrs. Van Dorn and
had written her two charming letters from Mrs. Dayton's porch.

What a trouble her education seemed to some of those who had no hand in
it.

CHAPTER XVII

IN THE DELIGHTFUL CURRENT

Helen Grant came to Aldred House again on Friday afternoon. Miss Daisy,
who had been there but an hour, rushed down to welcome her.

"Oh, dear! If something had happened and you had _not_ come," she cried,
"I should really have been broken-hearted, and I don't see what good
Samaritan could have bound up the wounds. And most things are going to
be strange and new."

"New girls?" inquiringly.

"Yes, ever so many of them. There were several Mrs. Aldred could not
take last year. She is closeted with two now, and you may as well come
upstairs at once. I have some new pictures--we will give away the old
ones. And the sweetest new willow rocker. But what do you think has
happened to Roxy Mays?"

"Marriage," cried Helen laughingly.

"No, but a fortune. And her oldest sister was married to a designer or
something who goes abroad to illustrate Russia. The old great-aunt died
suddenly, and lef