She wrote the letter which Uncle Zach put away in his hair trunk, and after it was gone turned suddenly to her mother and said: “By the way, now is your chance to carry out your promise to Cousin Alice. You have always been going to take her somewhere with us, and have never done it, because it would make our expenses heavier. Ridgefield is cheap. A whole week will not cost much more than one day sometimes did when we had the best rooms in the hotel. Let me invite Alice to go with us. Just think how poky and forlorn her life must be in that stuffy little schoolhouse among the mountains, with those children smelling of the factory and things. Can I write to her? She’s such good company and so helpful every way.” After a little hesitancy Mrs. Tracy consented, and Helen was soon dashing off the following letter: “New York, July — 18—. “Dear Allie:— “Here we are home again; landed five days ago, and I have such a love of a gown for you in some of my trunks. Cream colored, china silk, with puffings of lace and ribbons and everything. I had a gloriously good time abroad. Went everywhere,—saw everything,—was told a hundred times how handsome I was and how strange that I didn’t seem to know it! ‘The one beautiful woman I have met who is not conscious of her beauty,’ I heard an Englishman say to mamma. Oh! oh! oh! As if I didn’t look in the glass every time I pass it and say to the face I see there ‘You are lovely, but never give any sign that you know it, for this innocent baby way succeeds as well as your good looks. Not know it indeed!’ I have some new names in the blue book. One with a big interrogation point. ‘Walter Prescott, New York?’ That is the way it reads. His is the 20th bona fide offer, and mamma was furious when I refused him. Says I’ll go through the woods and take up with a crooked stick. Maybe I shall, but I tell you what; I am getting tired of seeing men turn white when I say no, and fencing to keep others from compelling me to say no. I am going to turn over a new leaf, and not wink, nor smile, nor try to get any one to look at me; and after a while marry Mr. Prescott and lead a perfectly domestic life. He neither dances, nor smokes, nor drinks, nor drives fast horses, nor likes society any way. Prefers a quiet home life, with his wife and his books. Is a great reader. I shall have to take up a course of study with you if I am to be Mrs. Prescott. I am a perfect dunce now and hardly know who discovered America, or shouldn’t if I hadn’t seen Columbus’ statue in Genoa.