"That's just it," she answered, with a loud laugh that distressed him beyond measure. "I'm not Helen, papa's darling, who meant to try and be good and meet her papa in heaven. I'm another girl, all bad, 'bad,' and nothing to help me be good. How will it all end?" "Helen, do you think Mr. Tracy a bad man? Have you a sufficient reason for thinking so? If you have, tell me what it is, and I will take you away from him, if I lose my fortune by the means. But if you have any pity on me, don't give up so." "I distrust Monson P. Tracy, Frank. He may be a shrewd business man. Papa thought him so. But I consider him wholly without principle; and then he is eaten up with selfishness. I verily believe he imagines there is only one man in the United States whose opinion is worth taking, and that man is Monson P. Tracy. He may be honest in this belief; and cheat himself into the idea that he is noble, generous, upright and honorable; but I'm sure he doesn't cheat his Maker." "Nor does he seem to have cheated you, Sis. But you give no proofs." "Perhaps I cannot. One must live with him to see how thoroughly a man can make clean the outside of the platter while the inside is full of corruption." "You never used to be so bitter, Helen! I couldn't have believed it was in you. Remember who says 'Judge not.'" She sighed. "Perhaps you would become bitter too, if you were obliged to put a constant restraint on your feelings, to listen day after day to a discourse on Christian duty, which was after all only an opportunity for self-glorification, and knew,—what you knew. If you heard a man planning all sorts of iniquity to blast the happiness of one under his charge, and then was obliged to listen to his prayers." She started as if to leave the spot; but he seized her hand. "You must not run away," he said firmly. "I wish I could run away from myself. I loathe the thought of harboring such hard, bitter, defiant feelings. I loathe myself for being obliged to live with those so utterly distasteful to me, to accept common civilities from their hands while all the time I hate them. Oh, it is indeed dreadful!" "Helen, tell me, what iniquity has Mr. Tracy planned to blast your happiness?" She shook her head, her eyes flashing. "I cannot tell you. It would be dishonorable. They think me young and capable of being moulded to—to, well no matter, to what. No, I must not tell you yet; but I promise that if anything occurs to make it impossible for me to reside under the same roof, I will tell you." "Do you imagine I can go back to my studies with the thought that my only sister, left to my care by our dying father, is in circumstances of peril, all the more alarming to me because I cannot even guess at the nature of it?" A quick gush of tears for a moment relieved poor Helen's agitation. But with a wonderful self-control, she quickly recovered herself. Throwing her arms around her brother's neck, she exclaimed passionately: