‘You always say that,’ said Helena, looking earnestly at her. ‘I have tried in vain to get a little conversation with you, and to know you better. I never see you, except at this dingy schoolroom, where I am sure the incentives to cheerful intercourse are not strong.’ Adrienne smiled rather faintly as she replied, ‘I am sorry; it looks rude, I know, but I must go home to my uncle. He is not very well at present; and I am obliged to leave him so much. You must excuse me!’ ‘If I must, I must, I suppose, but I don’t all the same,’ said Helena, turning away in some dissatisfaction, and at that moment Sebastian and Hugo entered, arm in arm. ‘Miss Spenceley!’ said Hugo, eagerly going up to her; ‘it is getting dark. May I accompany you home?’ ‘Oh yes, if you like,’ said Helena, absently, while she attentively listened to what was passing between their fellow-workers. ‘Miss Blisset,’ she heard Sebastian say, ‘your uncle particularly asked me to call this afternoon. I will walk with you to Stonegate, if you will allow me.’ ‘I shall be very glad,’ said she. ‘I am sure he will be pleased to see you. Do you know, sometimes I am afraid he will not live long.’ ‘His is hardly likely to be a long life,’ said Sebastian, evasively. ‘Oh, but it may be. Invalids--when they are taken such care of as I take of him--sometimes live a long time. And he is not old, and it is not as if he had a complaint in which there was danger of his dying suddenly.’ ‘Do you dread his death so much?’ asked Sebastian, folding her shawl around her. ‘I do; and I fear for selfish reasons. Without him I should be perfectly alone in the world.’ ‘You alone? not unless you wished it,’ said he, almost reproachfully, whilst Helena, assisted by the proud and happy Hugo, was wrapping herself in her fur-lined mantle with the sable border; the mantle which set off her dark, piquant beauty to the utmost advantage; for she was one of those truly English beauties who look almost lovelier in their outdoor dress, and with the flush of exercise upon their cheeks, than in the airy fabrics of the ball-room. But there was no flush upon Helena’s cheeks now. She turned to the boy who had been, or wished to be since he first saw her, her particular page in attendance (he aspired to nothing more in his own mind, and, despite all unfavourable circumstances, he had always seen Helena the wife of his worshipped friend), and said, in a voice that had sunk and grown tired, ‘Come, Hugo, I have no time to spare. We will leave the others to lock up. I must go.’ ‘I am ready, and waiting your pleasure, _mein gnädiges Fräulein_.’ ‘Don’t speak foreign tongues to me. Do you forget what Gretchen said to Faust when he called her Fräulein?’ ‘“Thank you, sir, I can walk home by myself.” That would be shocking, and I will not do it again.’