But second only to her affection for that country whereof she knew so little, and which must always be more or less a dreamland for her, was Mademoiselle de Bergerac’s affection for Berkshire, the land of her birth, the pastoral scene amidst which there was one corner, one quiet grave in a village churchyard--a grave above which there bloomed roses more beautiful than common flowers growing in common gardens--that must for ever make this one spot holier in her eyes than all other regions of this lower world. To keep her father’s house, to supply in some measure the place of that dear companion who was lost to him, to sustain the student’s ambition, and to watch the scholar’s health, meting out the midnight oil, and restraining the too eager spirit in the interests of the ill-used flesh,--in these things was comprised the desire of Helen de Bergerac’s heart and mind. She received her father’s secretary with a most delightful cordiality, accepting this new member of the family with a grace as easy as if he had been some long-absent brother or cousin come from beyond seas to take his place in the household. Prudery and affectation were unknown to this sylvan damsel. She found it rather agreeable than otherwise to have a well-bred, well-informed young man in attendance upon her when she inspected her garden, or supervised the arrangement of a rustic banquet under the chestnuts on the lawn. She found it agreeable to be assisted in her reading by some one whose time was less occupied, and whose erudition was less alarming than her father’s. She found it pleasant to have a friend who went to the extremest lengths in the worship of Beethoven and Weber,--a friend who could discourse most eloquently of Hugo and Shakespeare, Bulwer and Göthe, Balzac and Thackeray, while her father dozed in the quiet summer twilights, wearied out by his long day’s labour,--a friend who seemed, strange to say, always intensely interested in every subject that happened to interest her, a knight-errant who, living perchance in a prosaic century, was fain to demonstrate his devotion by the clipping of faded rose-leaves, and the hunting out of recondite islands and promontories in the classic atlas,--a friend who, by some unerring instinct, contrived always to do and say precisely what she wished,--a friend who was always the right man in the right place. “I don’t know how it is, but it seems to me that I am always right,” remarked the young Duchess of Burgundy with charming _naïveté_; and Mademoiselle de Bergerac on more than one occasion gave utterance to observations quite as _naïf_ on the subject of her new acquaintance. “I really cannot tell how it is Mr. Thorburn always contrives to make himself so agreeable, papa,” she said. The simple-hearted book-worm was no less blind than his daughter.