Dinner was a long and rather tedious affair. Cousin Mary's neighbours were not particularly entertaining, and although she tried to exert herself to talk her thoughts wandered constantly to the lonely child upstairs. In the drawing-room matters were still worse. Most of the ladies present were known to each other, and their small gossip sounded quite meaningless to an utter stranger like Miss Macleod. Mrs. Desmond, who, to do her justice, was never negligent of her duties as a hostess, noticed her cousin's abstraction, and tried more than once to draw her into the conversation, but without much success. When the gentlemen appeared there was a little very indifferent music, and then the company dispersed. Cousin Mary was heartily glad to find herself once more in her own room. But although she had pleaded fatigue in the drawing-room she seemed in no hurry to get into bed. Replacing her silk dress by a soft Cashmere gown, she opened her door and listened. Presently she heard Mrs. Desmond come up the stairs to her own room on the floor below. Cousin Mary peeped over the banisters and saw that the maid was in attendance. She waited until she heard the bed-room door close upon mistress and maid, and then she walked quietly upstairs, smiling to herself all the time. Arrived upon the landing, she looked about her, and presently espying a door standing partly open, and, peeping in, she saw at once she had reached her goal, for by the faint light that came in through the uncurtained window she could discern Helen lying in bed and tossing about restlessly. "Are you awake, Helen?" asked Cousin Mary softly. Helen sat up in bed. "Oh!" she cried, "have you really come to see me? I was afraid to expect you. And yet--" "Yet you had a notion that I might come." As Cousin Mary spoke she closed the door quietly and walked up to Helen's bed. Then she struck a light and lit a small lamp that she carried in her hand. After this she made Helen lie down, shook up her pillow, and covered her up; and then, drawing a chair close up to the bedside, she sat down herself. "Are you going to stop for a little while?" asked Helen with glistening eyes. "For a little while, yes. Not for long, though; you ought to have been asleep hours ago." "How can I go to sleep when I am so--so _dreadfully_ unhappy?" Helen's eyes that had been glistening a minute ago were filled with tears, and her voice grew tremulous. "I hate being such a baby," she went on, dashing away the rebellious tears with an angry hand. "I never let her see me cry. Only--only, somehow, when any one is very kind like you are----" "Silly child!" said Cousin Mary, taking the girl's hand, "don't you know that you are making your own troubles out of that sore little heart of yours?"