“Just think how romantic that would be!” the girl laughed; “and I could write your memoir and tell all I knew about you. Tell me about yourself, Arthur--I don't mean for the memoir, but because I want to know the news.” “There isn't any, Helen, except that I finished college last spring, as I wrote you, and I'm teaching school at Hilltown.” “And you like it?” “I hate it; but I have to keep alive, to try to be a poet. And that is the news about myself.” “Except,” added Helen, “that you walked twelve miles this glorious Saturday morning to welcome me home, which was beautiful. And of course you'll stay over Sunday, now you're here; I can invite you myself, you know, for I've come home to take the reins of government. You never saw such a sight in your life as my poor father has made of our house; he's got the parlor all full of those horrible theological works of his, just as if God had never made anything beautiful! And since I've been away that dreadful Mrs. Dale has gotten complete charge of the church, and she's one of those creatures that wouldn't allow you to burn a candle in the organ loft; and father never was of any use for quarreling about things.” (Helen's father, the Reverend Austin Davis, was the rector of the little Episcopal church in the town of Oakdale just across the fields.) “I only arrived last night,” the girl prattled on, venting her happiness in that way instead of singing; “but I hunted up two tallow candles in the attic, and you shall see them in church to-morrow. If there's any complaint about the smell, I'll tell Mrs. Dale we ought to have incense, and she'll get so excited about that that I'll carry the candles by default. I'm going to institute other reforms also,--I'm going to make the choir sing in tune!” “If you will only sing as you were singing just now, nobody will hear the rest of the choir,” vowed the young man, who during her remarks had never taken his eyes off the girl's radiant face. Helen seemed not to notice it, for she had been arranging the marigolds; now she was drying them with her handkerchief before fastening them upon her dress. “You ought to learn to sing yourself,” she said while she bent her head down at that task. “Do you care for music any more than you used to?” “I think I shall care for it just as I did then,” was the answer, “whenever you sing it.” “Pooh!” said Helen, looking up from her marigolds; “the idea of a dumb poet anyway, a man who cannot sing his own songs! Don't you know that if you could sing and make yourself gloriously happy as I was just now, and as I mean to be some more, you could write poetry whenever you wish.” “I can believe that,” said Arthur.