“Don’t mind a word Jack says to you, my dear, about hurrying up the wedding-day,” she laughed, in a half-earnest and altogether charming way,—not cynical, but with a certain undercurrent of genuine anxiety in her voice, all the more keenly felt by Sanford, who waited on every word that fell from her lips. “Put it off as long as possible. So many troubles and disappointments come afterwards, and it is so hard to keep everything as it should be. There is no happier time in life than that just before marriage. Oh, you needn’t scowl at me, you young Bluebeard; I know all about it, and you don’t know one little bit.” Helen looked at Jack in some wonder. She was at a loss to know how much of the talk was pure badinage, and how much, perhaps, the result of some bitter worldly experience. The young girl shuddered, yet without knowing what inspired the remark or what lay behind it. But she laughed quite heartily, as she said, “It is all true, no doubt; only I intend to begin by being something of a tyrant myself, don’t I, Jack?” Before Jack could reply, Smearly, who had hurried by Buckles, entered unannounced, and with a general smile of recognition, and two fingers to the major, settled himself noiselessly in an easy-chair, and reached over the silver tray for a cup. It was a house where such freedom was not commented on, and Smearly was one of those big Newfoundland-dog kind of visitors who avail themselves of all privileges. “What is the subject under discussion?” the painter asked, as he dropped a lump of sugar into his cup and turned to his hostess. “I have just been telling Miss Shirley how happy she will make us when she comes to The Pines this autumn.” “And you have consented, of course?” he inquired carelessly, lifting his bushy eyebrows. “Oh yes,” answered Helen, a faint shadow settling for a moment on her face. “It’s so kind of Mrs. Leroy to want me. You are coming, too, are you not, Mr. Sanford?” and she moved toward Henry’s end of the divan, where Jack followed her. She had never liked Smearly. She did not know why, but he always affected her strangely. “He looks like a bear,” she once told Jack, “with his thick neck and his restless movements.” “Certainly, Miss Helen, I am going, too,” replied Sanford. “I tolerate my work all summer in expectation of these few weeks in the autumn.” The young girl raised her eyes quickly. Somehow it did not sound to her like Sanford’s voice. There was an unaccustomed sense of strain in it. She moved a little nearer to him, however, impelled by some subtle sympathy for the man who was not only Jack’s friend, but one she trusted as well. “Lovely to be so young and hopeful, isn’t it?” said Mrs. Leroy to Smearly, with a movement of her head toward Helen. “Look at those two. Nothing but rainbows for her and Jack.”