if not--if the roses be missed from the
garland, one may sigh for the rose, but one is safe from the thorn.

The morning was mild, yet somewhat overcast by the mists which announce
coming winter in London, and Helen walked musingly beneath the trees that
surrounded the garden of Lord Lansmere's house. Many leaves were yet left
on the boughs; but they were sere and withered. And the birds chirped at
times; but their note was mournful and complaining. All within this house,
until Harley's arrival, had been strange and saddening to Helen's timid
and subdued spirits. Lady Lansmere had received her kindly, but with a
certain restraint; and the loftiness of manner, common to the Countess
with all but Harley, had awed and chilled the diffident orphan. Lady
Lansmere's very interest in Harley's choice--her attempts to draw Helen out
of her reserve--her watchful eyes whenever Helen shyly spoke, or shyly
moved, frightened the poor child, and made her unjust to herself.

The very servants, though staid, grave, and respectful, as suited a
dignified, old-fashioned household, painfully contrasted the bright
welcoming smiles and free talk of Italian domestics. Her recollections of
the happy warm Continental manner, which so sets the bashful at their
ease, made the stately and cold precision of all around her doubly awful
and dispiriting. Lord Lansmere himself, who did not as yet know the views
of Harley, and little dreamed that he was to anticipate a daughter-in-law
in the ward whom he understood Harley, in a freak of generous romance, had
adopted, was familiar and courteous, as became a host. But he looked upon
Helen as a mere child, and naturally left her to the Countess. The dim
sense of her equivocal position--of her comparative humbleness of birth and
fortunes, oppressed and pained her; and even her gratitude to Harley was
made burthensome by a sentiment of helplessness. The grateful longing to
requite. And what could she ever do for him?

Thus musing, she wandered alone through the curving walks; and this sort
of mock country landscape--London, loud and even visible beyond the high
gloomy walls, and no escape from the windows of the square formal
house--seemed a type of the prison bounds of Rank to one whose soul yearns
for simple loving Nature.

Helen's reverie was interrupted by Nero's joyous bark. He had caught sight
of her, and came bounding up, and thrust his large head into her hand. As
she stopped to caress the dog, hap