Helen’s visit to Cambridge had been restricted by no statute of limitations in regard to time, and the days passed on, the vague “few nights” growing to a week, and the week to a magnified fortnight. For these quiet, uneventful hours in which (except when the twin was with her) even the ticking of clocks seemed muffled had an extraordinary and growing charm for her, since she had learned that behind the outward placidity in her aunt there lay a very real inward life in which she longed without possibility of satisfaction and suffered without bitterness. That somehow to the girl seemed to lift up and consecrate Aunt Susan’s homely little employments, which, so sweetly and patiently performed, became symbols and signs of a very beautiful character, and that which Helen had thought dull, unperceptive, unemotional, was now lit from within, as it were, by the uncomplaining cheerfulness which gave such gentle, unquestioning welcome to the limitations set about her. For Lady Susan, so her niece had now learned, had not from her own defective eyesight set her horizons so close about her; circumstances, childlessness had imposed them, and that being so, she had taken up her place in the narrowed circle with resignation so cheerful that it could scarcely be called by that rather depressing name. In fact, the gentle old lady was put on a pedestal in the girl’s mind, and offerings of incense were made her, a position which now and then she found slightly embarrassing, for Helen, in her first moment of understanding and in the reaction from her previous hasty and mistaken judgment, was one torrent of warm-hearted sympathy, and was disposed to magnify into heroism the performance of those common tasks, just because she had before labelled them trivial. But from home--she must begin taking up her own little burdens at once--there came no word for her. She herself wrote regularly to her father, but morning after morning passed, bringing its posts, and still no answer came to her. Once she saw among the letters laid out for Aunt Susan one addressed in the brisk, scholarly handwriting, and could not help glancing at her aunt’s face as she read it. But she said nothing to Helen, and replaced the letter in its envelope with a troubled little sigh. Martin, also, she knew had heard from him, but there had been no message for her, no mention even of her. This omission, this intentional disregard of her, though it hurt her, made her sorry also, not for herself, but for him. It was inhuman, but she knew that it was the depth and earnestness of his feeling about her engagement that made him inhuman. On the other hand, she heard constantly from Frank, who hinted that if not a day, at any rate a season might be ever so vaguely indicated to which he could look forward.