Miss Carr pressed her lips together without speaking, while they paced slowly up and down the lawn. "I think," she said slowly, at last, "that three girls are rather too many in a house like this. You have Miss Briggs to look after Geraldine, and three servants to do the work. There cannot be enough occupation or interest to keep three young people content and happy. I have thought several times during the spring, Austin, that it would be a good plan if you lent one of your daughters to me for a year or two." "My dear Helen! A year or two! One of my girls!" "Yes--yes! I knew that you would work yourself up into a state of excitement. What a boy you are, Austin! Listen quietly, and try to be reasonable. If you send one of the girls to me, I will see that she finishes her education under the best masters; that she makes her entrance into society at the right time, and has friends of whom you would approve. It would be a great advantage--" "I know it, I feel it, and I am deeply grateful, Helen; but it can't be done. I can't separate myself from my children." "You manage to exist without your boys for nine months of the year; and I would never wish to separate you. She could come home for Christmas and a couple of months in summer, and you yourself are in town half-a- dozen times in the course of the year. You could always stay at my house." "Yes, yes; it's all true; but I don't like it, Helen, and--" "And you think only of yourself. It never occurs to you that I have not a soul belonging to me in that big, lonely house, and that it might be a comfort to me to have a bright young girl--" Mr Bertrand stopped short in the middle of the lawn and stared into his companion's face. There was an unusual flush on her cheeks, and her eyes glistened with tears. "Oh, my dear Helen," he cried. "I am a selfish wretch! I never thought of that. Of course, if you put it in that light, I can say no more. My dear old friend--I accept your offer with thanks! You have done so much for me, that I can refuse you nothing. It will be a lifelong advantage to the child, and I know you will make her happy." "I will, indeed; and you may trust me, Austin, to consider more than mere happiness. I will do my best to make her such a woman as her dear mother was before her." "I know you will. Thank you, Helen. And which--which--?" "Nay, I am not going to tell you that." Miss Carr had brushed the tears from her eyes, and with them all signs of her unusual emotion. She was herself again--sharp, decisive, matter-of-fact. "I must have my choice, of course; but I will take a week to make up my mind. And she must be left entirely in my hands for the time being, remember! I shall look after her clothes, education, pleasuring, as if she were my own child. There must be no interference."