"

Helen was sorry, and yet she shrank from the proposal, and was glad she
could not go. Was that ungrateful?

"Oh, I really could not, Uncle Jason. You see, Mrs. Van Dorn is just
getting better, and she wants a dozen things all at once, but I'll try
when we go out. Perhaps the first of the week."

"I'll have to hold on to my scalp when I get home," he said rather
ruefully. "Mother told me to bring you back."

"But I'm hired to stay here, and I can't run away as I like," she
answered pleasantly, but with dignity.

"That's so! That's so! Well, come soon as you can."

Mrs. Van Dorn's bell rang and she had to say good-by. Mrs. Dayton
entered at that moment.

"Helen," Mrs. Van Dorn said: "I've a mind to go down on the porch and
sit on the west side in the sun. I'm tired to death of this room. Get me
that white lambs-wool sacque, though I hate bundling up like an old
woman! I think I did take a little cold. And people who are seldom ill
are always the worst invalids, I've heard. Then bring that big Persian
wrap, I really do feel shaky, and that's ridiculous for me."

She managed to get down stairs very well. Helen fixed the wrap about the
chair and then crossed it on her knees. The white sacque was tied with
rose colored ribbons, and with her fluffy, curly hair she looked like an
old baby.

"Has the _Saturday Gazette_ come? Let's hear the little gossip of the
town. Who is going out of it, who is coming in, who played euchre at
Mrs. So and So's, and who won first prize, and who has a new baby."

There were other things--a column about some wonderful exhumations in
Arizona that were indications of a pre-historic people.

"Queer," she commented when Helen had finished, "but everywhere it seems
as if cities were built on the ruins of old cities. And no one knows the
thousands of years the world has stood. There is a theory that we come
back to life every so often, that some component part of us doesn't die.
Still, I do not see the use if one can't remember."

"But there is--heaven----" Helen was a little awe-struck at the
unorthodox views.

"Well--no one has come back from heaven. I believe there are several
cases of trances where people thought they were there, and had to come
back, and were very miserable over it. But it seems to me being here is
the best thing we know about. I feel as if I should like to live
hundreds of years, if I could be well and have my faculties."

"There's Auntie Briggs, as they call h