“When did I ever refuse anything to this dear child?” “And when did she ever ask anything that you should refuse? Come, Theodore, it is the first favour I have asked of you for a long time. I must go to Pendarvoch; and I cannot bear to leave this place, where I have been so happy, unless I can take those with me who have made the spot so dear.” To a woman of the world, the tone of these words, and the look which accompanied them, would have spoken volumes. To Helen they told nothing, except that Mr. Jerningham was sincerely attached to her father and herself. She had always thought of him as her father’s devoted friend, and it seemed to her only natural that she should be included in that friendship. She liked Harold Jerningham better than she liked any one, except those two people who reigned side by side in her heart; and the line which divides the outer tokens of liking and loving is so narrow a demarcation, that Harold Jerningham might easily be betrayed into fond hopes that were without foundation. Her manner to this friend of her father’s was all sweetness. His tender accents, his fond, admiring looks, she accepted as the natural gallantries of a man so much her senior. Her very innocence made her more dangerous than the most accomplished of coquettes. And at this notion of a trip to the Highlands she brightened and sparkled, and placed herself at once on Mr. Jerningham’s side. For so many reasons the plan was delightful to her. First and chiefest of such reasons, it promised to benefit her father; secondly, she had long known and rejoiced in the romances of the northern enchanter, and the very sound of Scottish names conjured a hundred visions of romance before her mind’s eye; thirdly, there had come upon Greenlands, upon her garden, her poultry-yard, her books, her piano, the river, the woods--nay, over the very sky that arched the woods and river, a shadow of dulness from the hour of Eustace Thorburn’s departure. The old places had lost their familiar charm--the old pursuits had become wearisome. She fancied that amidst new scenes she would be less likely to miss her old companion; and then, in the next breath, said to herself, “How _he_ would have liked to see Scotland!” A great deal of argument was required to convince Theodore de Bergerac that it could be for his benefit to uproot himself from the spot he so dearly loved in order to travel to remotest regions of the north. He had the Frenchman’s natural horror of foreign countries; and having once niched himself at his nest at Greenlands, cared not to stir thence, how fair soever might be the distant lands he was invited to visit. The argument which at last prevailed was that urged by Helen’s pleading face. _That_ entreaty the tender father was powerless to resist.