of mine; I
must discover what it is, and if it he my right eye, I would willingly
pluck it out to secure her affection. Alice is going home, and how worse
than lonely will I be!"

Helen caught a glimpse of the stream where, when a child, she used to
wade in the wimpling waters, and gather the diamond mica that sparkled
on the sand. She thought of the time when the young doctor had washed
the strawberry stains from her face, and wiped it with his nice linen
handkerchief, and her heart glowed at the remembrance of his kindness.
Mingled with this glow there was the flush of shame, for she could not
help starting at every sudden rustling sound, thinking the coiling snake
was lurking in ambush.

There was an air of desolation about Miss Thusa's cabin, which she had
never noticed before. The stepping-stones of the door looked so much
like grave-stones, so damp and mossy, it seemed sacrilege to tread upon
them. Helen hardly did touch them, she skipped so lightly over the
threshold, and stood before Miss Thusa smiling and out of breath.

There she sat at her wheel, solemn and ancestral, and gray as ever, her
foot upon the treadle, her hand upon the distaff, looking so much like a
fixture of the place, it seemed strange not to see the moss growing
green and damp on her stone-colored garments.

"Miss Thusa!" exclaimed Helen, and the aged spinster started at the
sound of that sweet, childish voice. Helen's arms were around her neck
in a moment, and without knowing why, she burst into an unexpected fit
of weeping.

"I am so foolish," said Helen, after she had dashed away her tears, and
squeezed herself into a little seat between Miss Thusa and her wheel,
"but I am so glad to get home, so glad to see you all once more."

Miss Thusa's iron nerves seemed quite unstrung by the unexpected delight
of greeting her favorite child. She had not heard of her return, and
could scarcely realize her presence. She kept wiping her glasses,
without seeming conscious that the moisture was in her own eyes, gazed
on Helen's upturned face with indescribable tenderness, smoothed back
her golden brown hair, and then stooping down, kissed, with an air of
benediction, her fair young brow.

"You have not forgotten me, then! You are still nothing but a child,
nothing but little Helen. And yet you are grown--and you look healthier
and rounder, and a shade more womanly. You are not as handsome as
Mittie, and yet where one stops to look at her, ten will