oanna, a little doubtful.

"Or butter-fingered," laughed Helen. "That's what we say at home. But
these dishes are so lovely that it is like--well it's like reading
verses after some heavy prose."

"I'm not much on verses," replied Joanna, watching her new help warily.
She did work with a dainty kind of touch.

Mrs. Dayton came, and stood looking at them with a humorous sort of
smile.

"She knows how to wipe dishes," said Joanna, nodding approvingly.

"It is a good deal to suit Joanna. No doubt she will excuse you this
time from wiping pots and pans, and you may come out of doors with me."

The lawn--they called it that here at North Hope--presented a
picturesque aspect. A party were playing croquet. Mrs. Disbrowe was
walking her twenty-months'-old little girl up and down the path. Mrs.
Van Dorn sat in a wicker rocking chair that had a hood over the top to
shield her from the air. Her silk gown flowed around gracefully, and her
hands were a sparkle of rings.

"Oh, how sweet the air is," said Helen. "There's sweet-clover somewhere,
and when the dew falls it is so delightful."

"They have it in the next-door lawn and the mower was run over it awhile
ago."

Helen drew long delicious breaths. No noisy children, and the soft
laughs, the gay talk was like music to her. She walked across the porch.

"Mrs. Dayton said you were fond of reading aloud," began Mrs. Van Dorn.
"Your voice is nice and smooth."

"Your voice is like your father's, Helen! I had not remarked it before.
Only it is a girl's voice," Mrs. Dayton commented.

"I am glad it suggests his," exclaimed Helen with a pleasurable thrill.

"Where is your father?" asked Mrs. Van Dorn.

"He is dead," said Mrs. Dayton. "Both father and mother are dead."

"I was an orphan, too," continued Mrs. Van Dorn. "And I had no near
relatives. It is a sorrowful lot."

"Helen has had good friends, relatives."

"That's a comfort. I heard, we all did, that you were one of the best
speakers at the closing of school. It was in the paper."

"Oh, was it?" Helen's eyes glowed with gratification.

"Yes. So Mrs. Dayton suggested you might be as good as some grown-up
body. That was Robert Browning's poem you recited."

"It is a splendid poem," cried Helen enthusiastically. "You can see it
all; the squadron--what was left of it after the battle--and the 'brief
and bitter debate,' and the order to blow up the vessels on the beach.
And then Herve Riel, just a sailor, stepping