She was a shy child still, I discovered, despite her tall figure, her pretty womanly shape and elegant air. My manhood was too recent a possession not to be rejoiced in when I saw that a woman's blushes came and went as she felt the weight of my glance. We went out of doors and saw the surges breaking on the shore, but the waves seemed happy that night, and lisped joyfully like children at their play. There was no voice of sorrow in all Nature: the birds circling about their nests began glad strains, then hushed them only to break forth again into fresh confused and joyful beginnings which they were too sleepy to finish. We talked of sorrow and loss, yet I think neither of us was very sorrowful, although Helen's tears flowed unchecked as she poured forth the simple narrative of her grandfather's last days--how he had never been so tender, so self-forgetful, as then; how he could not do enough to show his deep love for her; and then how, in the night, all at once, without a last look, word or caress, he was gone and his tenderness was but a memory. "I felt at first," said Helen, "as if there were no longer anything for me to do in the world. It seemed a treason to poor grandpa that I saw how beautiful the crocuses were as they blossomed in the beds on the terrace here, and when the mayflowers came I did not dare to pick them except to put them on his grave. Then, you know, as not even papa knows, that with all my reverence for my grandfather I had still had a terrible sense of responsibility mingled with my love for him; and not even yet can I go out a few hours for a drive or a ride without my feeling every now and then, through all my pleasure with papa, a sudden pang of dread. After such times I run to his room: it is easy enough to believe then that he no longer has any need of me." "You were all alone at first, Helen, until my mother came to you? Two weeks alone! It seems dreadful." "Georgy Lenox was here, you know." "Georgy Lenox here?" I echoed in surprise. "I never heard anything so strange. How did it happen?" Helen looked at me in her turn in astonishment. "Why was it strange?" she asked, as if regarding the matter in a new light. "She was one of the family: she came to grandpapa's funeral. Cousin Charles Raymond himself invited all the Lenoxes, for Mr. Lenox's mother was a Raymond--was grandpa's own sister, I believe. Why was it strange?" "Natural for her to come perhaps, but I should not have expected her to remain. You asked her, no doubt?" "No-o-o," returned Helen doubtfully. "I don't know how it was. The house was filled with people for a week: then they went away and Georgy stayed. She said it was horrid for me to have no lady near me in my trouble. Cousin Charles was here all the time until your mother came, but his wife was ill in New York." "And when my mother arrived Georgy left you?"