“But I do not know, my dear,” said Mrs Buchanan, “how Helen is to see this friend of yours, unless she calls on us--and we are strangers to her, you know.” Mrs Buchanan was a little proud--she had no idea of being condescended to. “Only wait till she comes,” said Hope, triumphantly, “I know she will want to see Helen sooner than anybody else, because she says Helen is--” Helen interposed. She fancied that Hope intended to repeat the same word of commendation, and the quick spirit did not choose to hear it again. She was mistaken--Hope intended to bestow upon her friend the highest title in her vocabulary--that of gentlewoman--in name of Miss Swinton. “When Miss Swinton speaks of me so kindly,” said Helen in haste, “let me hear what she calls you, Hope.” Hope hesitated--she liked very well to repeat the commendation to herself, but had a little tremor in saying it aloud--if Helen laughed at her! “I don’t know--perhaps she did not mean it,” said Hope, slowly, “but Miss Swinton says I am sensible, Helen.” Mrs Buchanan shed the rebellious hair off Hope’s open candid forehead, and Helen laughed in such kindly wise as could by no possibility mean ridicule, as her mother said,-- “And so you are, Hope--and a good bairn besides. Miss Swinton is quite right.” Whereupon Hope launched forth into another panegyric upon Miss Swinton. Helen did not very distinctly hear her. There was a good deal of the suggestive in Hope’s conversation, and her friend had snatched from it in her hasty fashion the germ of an important idea. “Mother,” said Helen, breaking in abruptly upon Hope, “should you like to live in Edinburgh?” Mrs Buchanan’s mind was not so rapid as her daughter’s. She looked up with a quiet unmoved smile. “I do not doubt I should, Helen; most people like Edinburgh; but why do you ask me?” Mrs Buchanan laid down her work as she spoke, and waited for the proposal which she knew was to follow. She had yet no glimmering of what it was, but she had studied those kindling eyes too long not to know that the sudden flush of some new purpose possessed them. “Suppose we could go,” said Helen, rapidly; “suppose I could get a situation, mother, with some one like Miss Swinton, with Miss Swinton herself perhaps; should you like it? would you go to Edinburgh?” Mrs Buchanan paused to think; the glowing moving face before her was not of the kind which takes time to deliberate. Helen clasped her small nervous fingers and looked into the vacant air, with her fixed unconscious eyes, and saw no obstacle in the way; no lingering tenderness to subdue; no sickness of heart to overcome; when they came hereafter she would do battle against them bravely--now, she saw them not. “Oh, Helen!” exclaimed Hope, breathless with her first surprise and delight; but Hope recollected herself; this would be a death-blow to all her schemes, so she added,--“Helen, the teachers all live with Miss Swinton. Mrs Buchanan, you would not like to be alone?”