Laura closed her book in some annoyance. He usually returned by the other side of the river, and she was not grateful to him for his breach of habit. Why had he been meddling in her affairs? She perfectly understood why Augustina had been making herself so difficult about the dance, and about the Masons in general. Let him keep his proprieties to himself. She, Laura, had nothing to do with them. She was hardly his guest--still less his ward. She had come to Bannisdale against her will, simply and solely as Augustina's nurse. In return, let Mr. Helbeck leave her alone to enjoy her plebeian relations as she pleased. Nevertheless, of course she must be civil; and civil she intermittently tried to be. She answered his remark about Bruno by a caress to the dog that brought him to lay his muzzle against her knee. "Do you mind? Some people do mind. I can easily drive him away." "Oh, no! I reckon on recovering him--some day," he said, with a frank smile. Laura flushed. "Very soon, I should think. Have you noticed, Mr. Helbeck, how much better Augustina is already? I believe that by the end of the summer, at least, she will be able to do without me. And she tells me that the Superior at the orphanage has a girl to recommend her as a companion when I go." "Rather officious of the Reverend Mother, I think," said Helbeck sharply. He paused a moment, then added with some emphasis, "Don't imagine, Miss Fountain, that anybody else can do for my sister what you do." "Ah! but--well--one must live one's life--mustn't one, Fricka?"--Fricka was by this time jealously pawing her dress. "I want to work at my music--hard--this winter." "And I fear that Bannisdale is not a very gay place for a young lady visitor?" He smiled. And so did she; though his tone, with its shade of proud humility, embarrassed her. "It is as beautiful as a dream!" she said, with sudden energy, throwing up her little hand. And he turned to look, as she was looking, at the river and the woods. "You feel the beauty of it so much?" he asked her, wondering. His own strong feeling for his native place was all a matter of old habit and association. The flash of wild pleasure in her face astounded him. There was in it that fiery, tameless something that was the girl's distinguishing mark, her very soul and self. Was it beginning to speak from her blood to his? She nodded, then laughed. "But, of course, it isn't my business to live here. I have a great friend--a Cambridge girl--and we have arranged it all. We are to live together, and travel a great deal, and work at music." "That is what young ladies do nowadays, I understand." "And why not?" He lifted his shoulders, as though to decline the answer, and was silent--so silent that she was forced at last to take the field. "Don't you approve of 'new women,' Mr. Helbeck? Oh! I wish I was a new woman," she threw out defiantly. "But I'm not good enough--I don't know anything."