"Ah, I think that was a sudden impulse, and she has always been too proud to own that it was a mistake." "That's the first sensible thing any one has said yet," John remarked. "I quite agree with you. It's my own idea." "I'm a young man of penetration, as I've told you all before." "And shoved into a bank!" John grumbled. "I like the bank. It's a cheerful place. There's lots of gold about, and people come and talk to me through the bars." "But," Helen began, on the deep notes of her voice, "what should we have done if she had repented and taken us away? What should we have done?" "We might have been happy," Miriam said. "John, what would you have done?" Helen persisted. "Said nothing, grown up as fast as I could, and come back." "So should I." Rupert chuckled. "You wouldn't, Helen. You'd have stayed with Notya and Miriam and me and looked after us all, and longed for this place and denied yourself." "And made us all uncomfortable." Miriam pointed at Helen's grey dress. "What have you been doing?" Helen looked down at the dark marks where her knees had pressed the ground. "It will dry," she said, and went nearer the fire. "Zebedee says old Halkett's ill." "Drink and the devil," Rupert hummed. "He'll die soon." "Hope so," John said fervently. "I don't like to think of the bloated old beast alive." "He'll be horrider dead, I think," said Helen. "Dead things should be beautiful." "Well, he won't be. Moreover, nothing is, for long. You've seen sheep's carcasses after the snows. Don't be romantic." "I said they should be." "It's a good thing they're not. They wouldn't fertilize the ground. Can't we have supper?" "Here's Notya!" Miriam uttered the warning, and began to poke the fire. The room was entered by a small lady who carried her head well. She had fair, curling hair, serious blue eyes and a mouth which had been puckered into a kind of sternness. "So you have come back, Helen," she said. "You should have told me. I have been to the road to look for you. You are very late." "Yes. I'm sorry. I met Dr. Mackenzie." "He ought to have brought you home." "He wanted to. I got turbot for Uncle Alfred. It's on the kitchen table." "Then I expect the cat has eaten it," said Mrs. Caniper with resignation, but her mouth widened delightfully into what might have been its natural shape. "Miriam, go and put it in the larder." Surreptitiously and in farewell, Miriam dropped the poker on Helen's toes. "Why can't she send you?" she muttered. "It's your turbot." "But it's your cat." Wearing what the Canipers called her deaf expression, their stepmother looked at the closing door. "I did not hear what Miriam said," she remarked blandly. "She was talking to me." "Oh!" Mrs. Caniper flushed slowly. "It is discourteous to have private conversations in public, Helen. I have tried to impress that on you--unsuccessfully, it seems; but remember that I have tried."