"You here, Helen?" she said rather sharply. "I did not hear you come in. Don't you see my cousin, Miss Macleod? Why don't you come and say 'How do you do?' to her?" "I was waiting to be told to," returned the girl, with that indefinable note of defiance in her voice which grated the more upon her stepmother that it was impossible to discover in it any tangible cause of offence. As Helen spoke she came forward with a lagging step and took Miss Macleod's outstretched hand, murmuring something unintelligible, Mrs. Desmond watching her stepdaughter with displeased eyes the while. Since the scene narrated in the last chapter, there had been a sort of armed neutrality between these two. Helen had submitted to the punishment inflicted upon her for her behaviour upon that occasion with the worst possible grace, and no single word of contrition for her fault had passed her lips. On the contrary, she maintained a sort of sullen reserve which annoyed even her father, and went far to deprive her of such consolation as she might have extracted from his secret, if unspoken, sympathy. As for Mrs. Desmond, her spirit of obstinacy was aroused, and so far from ascribing her failure to win Helen to any fault of her own, she clung yet more persistently than ever to her preconceived ideas, and subjected the girl to still severer discipline. Whilst acting thus, Mrs. Desmond considered herself the most forgiving of mortals because she maintained a forbearing though frigid demeanour towards her wayward stepdaughter. With her husband, indeed, she assumed a martyr-like air whenever Helen's name was mentioned. This did not happen often. Mrs. Desmond really loved her husband and had far too much tact to vex him, or to sound a jarring note in his hearing unnecessarily. Neither did she set herself designedly to lessen Helen in her father's affection. It was more by what she left unsaid than by what she said that she conveyed to the colonel a bad impression of Helen's disposition, and spoilt the happy, unrestrained intercourse that had hitherto subsisted between these two. Such was the position of affairs at the time of Mary Macleod's visit. That quick-witted lady had guessed it pretty accurately from her cousin's conversation. Perhaps it interested her, for she watched Helen keenly from the moment that she became aware of the girl's presence. She smiled very pleasantly as Helen, in obedience to her stepmother's command, approached the visitor, and not at all repelled, seemingly, by the unwilling little hand that was laid in hers, she drew Helen's face down and kissed it, saying in a warm voice, to which the slight northern burr gave a homely sound: "So you are my new cousin. I am a relation, you know--Cousin Mary. But, bless me, child, how cold your hands are! Come and sit by the fire and I will warm them." A smile came upon Helen's face, although she drew back a little proudly. "I am not cold, thank you," she said, and moved away.