elighted, I am sure. And though you are
younger, I do not know so very much more," laughingly. "You always study
in such desperate earnest. We should keep step together. Oh, don't you
wish we could see into the future?"

Yes, she really did.

Her friendship with Juliet Craven touched another side of her nature.
Miss Craven had a vein of peculiar romance. She improvised in music, she
could imitate bird-songs in rare melody, she could go to depths of
feeling in a few chords that stirred one's very soul. It was absolute
genius.

"These are the things I used to sing to myself in the old home," she
would say. "Sometimes I would put words to them."

"Why, that would be poetry. Why don't you try to write them down?" Helen
inquired with newborn interest.

"There are so many things to study, to learn, to do. I am not pretty
enough to attract people, but of course, I know the money would.
Sometimes I wish I had only just enough for my own wants. Another year I
shall come into actual possession of a large sum, and three years later,
if the mines should be sold, there will be--well, I haven't any idea how
much more. Mrs. Davis' plan is to take me abroad and find someone with a
title to marry me. What could I do in that kind of life? I want
something quiet, far-reaching. I should like to make unfortunate people
happy. I wonder if there are any young girls in the world as lonely and
as unfortunate as I was! I shudder when I think I might have gone on
with grandfather until all the best years of my life were spent. Mrs.
Howard advises me to stay here and get a thorough education, and I think
that is best."

Helen was very decided in her opinion that it was by far the best. How
queer that money should be so unequally divided, Miss Craven having so
much more than she could use, Mrs. Van Dorn having so much, and some of
the girls with such rich fathers, then others just squeezing through,
she really having none at all.

Mrs. Van Dorn was doing just what Miss Craven longed to do. No, not
_just_. If Helen had been unpromising she realized keenly that she might
have gone back to Uncle Jason, or worked her way through the High School
as she best might. She knew now, most girls of sixteen do, that an
attractive face and manner was an excellent capital. She sometimes gave
herself a little mental hug at the thought of having just the right
share of good looks, enough to please, and not enough to be vain of,
and not the sort of fascinat