As for little Janey, she was as happy as the day was long, with little Marie from the cottage next door, and Petit-Jean. Her French bubbled up like a little fountain, all mingled with laughter. It was so funny to talk like the little French children, Janey thought; and no doubt they too could talk English like her if they would take the trouble. Helen, too, settled down as if she had been to the manner born. She, who had scarcely ever threaded a needle for herself, mended the rents in Janey’s frocks, and took pleasure in it. She learned from Blanchette how to knit, and began to make warm stockings for her little sister. She taught Janey her letters every morning. She had a great deal to do, to supplement Margot’s exertions with the featherbrush, and arrange everything as well as she could, the meals and all the details of the house. And by-and-by Helen began to forget the strange way in which this change had been accomplished. She forgot that midnight flight, the dismal journey, the fugitives’ career from place to place. She could scarcely have told any one what it was that had brought them to Latour. Had they meant to come to Latour when they left England? Helen could not tell. She was embarrassed, bewildered by the question, though it was she who put it to herself. She had lived a life so retired and quiet at home, that she had nobody to regret except Miss Temple, who had married Mr Ashton; but this marriage had happened nearly a year ago, and Helen had spent all the summer alone. The time we spend alone goes so slowly. She had lived like a young hermit in the great house; even Janey she had only seen when Nurse thought proper. She had nothing to do, nothing to live by, nobody to think of. She had been awoke all at once from that feeble dream of existence by the thunder-clap of the sudden flight. And now she found herself like one who has fallen from a great height, or recovered from a severe illness, or been picked up out of the sea--living, and thankful to be living, accustoming herself to this surprising reality of existence, so true after so much that was not true. Helen’s intellect had not very many requirements, and such as it had could be supplied by that perennial fountain of dreams which makes up for so much that is lacking in youth. She had no books to read, but she told herself a long and endless fable through all the silent hours, so much the more enthralling that she was always in it, the doer, or the cause of the doing, present in all its succeeding scenes.