"Yes; I come here when I am too angry to do anything else, and I slash away at the earth until I grow quite happy again." Helen smiled. "What a good idea! I can guess exactly how you feel." "Can you? Well, don't tell anyone. If Agatha knew, she would be sure to say that I was in mischief, and then I should be forbidden to come here again." "I won't say a word. Go on digging, and I will stop and watch you." Harold threw down his spade. "I don't want to dig any more. I say, shall we sit on the top of the wall and talk? There is a place just there overlooking the road from where one can see everything that goes by without being seen one's self." Helen needed no persuasion. Assisted by Harold, who climbed like a cat, she easily scaled the wall, and, sheltered from observation by the leafy branches of an overhanging copper beech, they soon fell into pleasant talk. So deeply interesting were their mutual confidences, that it was not until a glimpse of Mrs. Desmond's victoria going by rapidly recalled Helen to a recollection of the impropriety of her present position that she remembered Grace, whom she had left so unceremoniously, and who would probably be seeking her, as the afternoon was wearing on. "What's the matter?" asked Harold, seeing Helen's face fall. "There is mamma going to the Rectory. She said that she might fetch me." "Why don't you say mother? Mamma sounds so funny." "Because she isn't my _mother_." Both were silent for a moment. Harold's questioning blue eyes looked curiously into Helen's face, but it betrayed nothing. Helen was too deep-natured to wear her heart upon her sleeve. She knew quite well that Mrs. Desmond disliked the word mamma, considering it underbred; but the girl had told herself that she would call no stranger mother, and she kept her word. "I suppose that I ought to have been with Grace all this time," she said, breaking silence. "Come along, Harold, and let us find her quickly." "Never mind Grace. She never cares for anybody when she has a book, and she didn't want you to come at all. I expect it is about tea-time, and the best thing we can do is to go straight back to the school-room." Unfortunately, in order to reach the house it was necessary to pass right under the drawing-room windows. Mrs. Desmond's victoria had deposited her at the Rectory some time before Harold and Helen could return thither, and she clearly discerned the two untidy little figures scudding across the lawn. "Dear me! Is that Helen?" she asked. "I told her to be ready when I called for her." Mrs. Bayden, who, with Agatha's assistance, was dispensing tea, looked up nervously. "Helen! I hope not. I thought that the school-room tea had gone up some time ago. Agatha, would you--" "It is Helen," broke in Agatha abruptly. "She ran away from Grace and left her alone all the afternoon. Of course she has been with Harold. Birds of a feather, you know. Shall I tell her to come to you at once, Aunt Margaret?"