be so with other things. I wish I were
a better musician."

"Mrs. Van Dorn will care more for your voice. You can take excellent
singing lessons abroad. Helen, I _do_ congratulate you from the bottom
of my heart. And whatever happens I shall always want to be considered
your sincere friend. I have been very much interested in your
development, and shall continue so to be."

She bent over and kissed Helen, who returned the caress with much
warmth.

"You will answer your letter to go by noon to-morrow."

Helen bowed, too much moved to speak.

It was still strange to her. One might dream of an event coming in the
future, but to have it _here_, to put your hand on it, as one might say,
dazed her. Daisy was at a music practice, though she did not think she
could talk it over with anyone just now.

Miss Craven stood hesitatingly in the half open doorway, with beseeching
eyes.

"If you are not too very busy--I'm in trouble about the Latin. Oh, if I
could be quick to see into things!" in a passion of regret that
emphasized every line of her face where last year it would have been
unmoved.

"I had an awful time about it, too, so we can sympathize," smiling
cheerfully. "I just wanted something to start up my energies."

"Oh, what should I do without you? Shall I ever be able to go on alone?"

"Think what you have accomplished in the two years," was the reassuring
answer.

There was a saunter around the grounds afterwards, meeting several
groups of girls and flinging bright jests at each other. Then dinner,
the study period, some conversation and it was bedtime. But Helen could
not sleep. She smiled to herself as she wondered what Mr. Warfield would
say and there was a consciousness that he would think her only half
educated. Well, could one ever be wholly educated at sixteen?--even at
sixty, professors are learning new things. And, oh, what a stir it would
make all through the Hopes!

She was up early the next morning. Daisy was asleep in her little white
bed with a smile on her face. Yes, she would hate to leave her and Miss
Craven, and several others. She slipped on her lovely Japanese silk
morning gown, she reveled in pretty garments nowadays, though they were
all befitting a girl of sixteen, and picking up her portfolio she glided
softly down to the study room.

Oh, what a morning it was! The sun was throwing out long shining rays in
the east and they glistened on the tree-tops, on the distant hills, on
the