"Do you know, Dolores," said Helena, "that little smile of yours means just the same to me now, as a kiss? At first, when I used to caress you, your lack of responses chilled me; yet I was so fond of you, and you are so lovely, I could not refrain from demonstrations of affection. I must have some one to pet; it is a necessity with me; and now that faint little smile you give me, seems just the same as a kiss would seem from any other girl." "I am glad it does--it means the same," Dolores replied. "I am very undemonstrative by nature. You are positively the only person, Lena, by whom I could endure to be caressed. I do not remember that I ever voluntarily kissed any one in my life. I could never see any meaning or sense in it; but it seems all right coming from you. Only I am glad you do not demand a response from me." "But surely you kiss your uncle sometimes?" Helena queried. "No, never. His nature and mine are similar in that respect. You will think him cold, and severe, but he has had some bitter sorrows in his life, and it is no wonder if they have frozen his heart's blood. Yet he is very kind to me, and he has taught me much, and told me many things, which I might otherwise have had to learn as he did--by cruel experience. But come, dear, we must finish our examination papers, and you must write that letter to your mother. I think I will enclose a note, begging her to grant me the favor of your company, and promising to take the best of care of you." Both letters were accordingly written and an affirmative reply to the request was received by the delighted girls before the school term closed. Helena packed her trunk with all a young girl's eager anticipation of a new experience. Madame Scranton and a small body-guard of teachers and pupils accompanied the young ladies to the depot, and saw them safely seated in the car which would, in a few hours, bring them to their destination. They were met at the station by a colored serving man, whom Dolores addressed as Daniel, and who informed her that "Master Laurence was well nigh sick: did not seem to have no appetite and couldn't sleep." "Why was I not written to? Why was I not sent for, if Uncle is ill?" cried Dolores, with so much distress in her face, that Helena, accustomed to the usual calm of her friend's demeanor, looked upon her with surprise. Daniel's assurance that his master was not sick, "only ailin'," did not remove the cloud from Dolores' face until they reached the mansion, which seemed to Helena, filled with a "well-bred gloom," as she afterwards expressed it. As a garment becomes impregnated with the odors of the body, so the atmosphere of a house becomes saturated with the essence or the spiritual nature of its inhabitants. In Helena Maxon's own home, humble and modest though it was, who ever crossed its threshold felt the rush of a vitalized current of love and good cheer, like a soft breeze about him.