“I am trying my poor, humble best to show you what to think. And you could not possibly feel more worried than I just now; Helen, you could be rid of all these doubts and struggles in one instant, if you chose. Ask yourself if it is not true; you have only to give yourself into the arms of the happiness that calls you. And you never will get rid of the matter in any other way,--indeed you will not! If you should fling away this chance, the memory of it would never leave you all your life; after you knew it was too late, you would torment yourself a thousand times more than ever you can now.” “Oh, dear, dear!” cried Helen, half hysterically; “I can't stand that, Aunt Polly. I'll do anything, only let me alone! My head is aching to split, and I don't know where I am.” “And you will never find another chance like it, Helen,” went on the other, with sledge-hammer remorselessness. “For if you behave in this perfectly insane way and lose this opportunity, I shall simply give you up in despair at your perversity.” “But I haven't said I was going to lose it,” the girl exclaimed. “He won't be any the less in love with me if I make him wait, Aunt Polly!--” “Mr. Harrison was going back to Cincinnati in a day or two,” put in Mrs. Roberts, swiftly. “He will stay if I wish him to,” was the girl's reply. “There is no need for so much worry; one would think I was getting old.” “Old!” laughed the other. “You are so beautiful this morning, Helen, that I could fall in love with you myself.” She turned the girl towards her, seeing that her toilet was finished. “I haven't a thought in the world, dear, but to keep you so beautiful,” she said; “I hate to see you tormenting yourself and making yourself so pale; why will you not take my advice and fling all these worries aside and let yourself be happy? That is all I want you to do, and it is so easy! Why is it that you do not want to be happy? I like to see you smile, Helen!” And Helen, who was tired of struggling, made a wry attempt to oblige her, and then broke into a laugh at herself. Meanwhile the other picked a rose from a great bunch of them that lay upon the bureau, and pinned it upon her dress. “There, child,” she, said, “he can never resist you now, I know!” Helen kissed her excitedly upon the cheek, and darted quickly out of the door, singing, in a brave attempt to bring back her old, merry self:-- “The flowers that bloom in the spring, tra-la-la, Have nothing to do with the case.” A moment later, however, she recollected Mr. Howard and his misfortune, and her heart sank; she ran quickly down the steps to get the thought of him from her mind.