Franklin paused, his notebook in his hand, and looked over it at Helen. He seemed taken aback, though at once he mastered his surprise. 'Oh, is that so?' was his only comment. Then he added, after a moment's reflection: 'Well, I guess I'll run up and meet her myself, then. I've always met and seen her off in America, and we'll keep up the old custom on this side.' 'That would be very nice of you,' said Helen. 'Of course she has that invaluable Amelie to look after her, and, of course, Gerald knew that she would be all right, or he would have managed it.' 'Of course,' said Franklin. 'And we'll keep up the old custom.' That evening there arrived for Miss Buchanan and her niece two large boxes--one for Miss Grizel, containing carnations and roses, and one for Helen containing violets. Also, for the younger lady, was a smaller--yet still a large box--of intricately packed and very sophisticated sweets. Upon them Mr. Kane had laid a card which read: 'I don't approve of them, but I'm sending them in the hope that you do.' Another box for Miss Grizel contained fresh groundsel and chickweed for her canaries. CHAPTER XIX. Althea was an excellent sailor and her voyage back to England was as smooth and as swift as money could make it. She had been seen off by many affectionate friends, and, since leaving America, the literature, the flowers and the fruit with which they had provided her had helped to pass the hours, tedious at best on ship-board. Two other friends, not so near, but very pleasant--they were New York people--were also making the voyage, but as they were all very sea-sick, intercourse with them consisted mainly in looking in upon them as they lay, mute and enduring, within their berths, and cheering them with the latest reports of progress. Althea looked in upon them frequently, and she read all her books, and much of her time, besides, had been spent in long, formless meditations--her eyes fixed on the rippled, grey expanse of the Atlantic while she lay encased in furs on her deck chair. These meditations were not precisely melancholy, it was rather a brooding sense of vague perplexity that filled the dream-like hours. She had left her native land, and she was speeding towards her lover and towards her new life; there might have been exhilaration as well as melancholy in these facts. But though she was not melancholy, she was not exhilarated. It was a confused regret that came over her in remembering Boston, and it was a confused expectancy that filled her when she looked forward to Gerald. Gerald had written to her punctually once a week while she had been in America, short, but very vivid, very interesting and affectionate letters. They told her about what he was doing, what he was reading, the people he saw and his projects for their new life together. He took it for granted that this was what she wanted, and of course it was what she wanted, only--and it was here that the confused regrets arose in