his wife positively shuddered at the idea of Helen's running wild, she did not attempt to gainsay him, and after this there was no more discussion about the matter. Helen went to Longford Grange without a governess, and with a tacit understanding that, under certain restrictions, such as early rising and punctual attendance at meals, she was to be allowed to do pretty much as she pleased. But in spite of her father's tenderness, of the charms of a country life, and the delights of freedom, Helen did not recover her health or her spirits directly. Perhaps she was by nature a little morbid, and, if so, the unnatural repression to which she had been subjected during the past year, and the want of wholesome sympathy and young companionship had tended to dangerously foster such a quality. She was always brooding over what was past, and exaggerating her own failings. Morbidly conscious that she was an object of dislike to her stepmother, she credited Mrs. Desmond with a depth of feeling of which that cold-natured woman was incapable. Anxious to show her true contrition for what was past, she was perpetually fidgeting her stepmother with small attentions which Mrs. Desmond not only failed to appreciate, but which she ascribed to motives of which Helen's generous, open nature was incapable. Colonel Desmond, indeed, looked on smiling. What an improvement in Helen! To be sure he missed the child's bright ways and frank outspoken talk. But for this, and for his little daughter's white, oldened face, he would have begun to believe that his Margaret's training had worked miracles. But to see these two beginning to understand one another was worth anything, even his illness. No doubt it was her stepmother's tender sympathy through that sad time that had brought Helen to this mind. So reasoned the colonel, and was content. Meanwhile he and his wife became once more a good deal absorbed in each other's society, and Helen was left to her own devices. Lonely Helen, lying in her hammock on this bright summer's day thinking of many things about which young heads should not concern themselves, heard a step in the orchard, and starting up hastily, saw a young girl, apparently about her own age, coming towards her. "One of those tiresome girls from the Rectory, I suppose," she said to herself discontentedly. Helen had as yet only seen her stepmother's relatives in church, Mrs. Desmond having hinted very strongly to her sister that, owing to the colonel's state of health and her own shattered nerves, intercourse between the Grange and Rectory would be necessarily restricted, especially as regarded the young people. Agatha, however, the eldest Rectory girl, had been presented to her aunt, in whose eyes she had found favour, as Helen knew to her cost, having smarted more than once under an unflattering comparison between herself and the young lady in question.