rn was so beautiful it touched her
heart. "Uncle wanted to take me back on Saturday to stay over Sunday.
They think----"

"Did you want to go?" with quick jealousy.

"Not very much, oh, no, I'm not homesick at all. I like it so much over
here. But I ought to go now and then."

"Well--we will see."

Helen had put on her last summer's white frock. She would rather have
worn the blue lawn or the pretty embroidered white muslin, made out of
Mrs. Dayton's long ago skirt, but some feeling withheld her.

How beautiful Chestnut Hill was to-day! It was not all chestnuts, though
they were there tall and stately, but with a mingling of maple and beech
and dogwood, and here and there hemlocks and cedars. A sort of wild
garden of trees, but all about the edges common little shrubs and sumac
stood up loyally as if the trees were not to have it all. And smaller
things in bloom tangled here and there with clematis and Virginia
creeper, and a riot of mid-summer bloom. They had brought along a volume
of Wordsworth's shorter poems, and Helen read here and there in the
pauses.

Mrs. Van Dorn was ruminating over a thought that had crossed her mind.
Wouldn't this girl be glad to go off somewhere and thrust her old life
behind her? How much did she care for her people? Someone could make a
fine and attractive young woman out of her, yes, there was a certain
noble beauty that might be cultivated and bloom satisfactorily from
twenty to thirty. Ten or twelve years?

"Take the lower road round by the Center," she said to the driver.

Helen raised her eyes in acknowledgment. They passed the old farm
houses, and at the gate of one of them stood Grandmother White, a small
wrinkled old lady in a faded gown and checked apron. She nodded to
Helen. Was that worth the living to old age? Mrs. Van Dorn shrugged her
shoulders. Thank Heaven she should not be like that when she came near
the hundred mark.

"Now I will drive around a little while you make your call. It must not
be very long, or we shall be late for dinner."

Helen sprang out with an airy lightness. The front windows were all
darkened as usual. She ran up the path, around the side of the house.
Aurelia was weeding among the late planted beets where dwarf peas had
taken the early part of the season.

"Oh, Helen!" She sprang up with the trowel in her hand, "I'm so glad
you've come. Are you going to stay all night? I miss you so much. I have
such lots of work to do, and mother's cros