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?"

"My own troubles! You don't understand, or you wouldn't say that. Why should I do as she tells me? She isn't my mother. My father and I were happy before she came, and now even father doesn't love me. I met him on the stairs to-day and he asked me if I was sorry, and just because I said I wasn't he went on and never spoke another word to me. He didn't use to want me to be sorry, he wanted me to be happy."

"And yet you weren't always happy then, Helen."

"Oh, yes! I was; at least nearly always."

"Had you no troubles? Did nothing ever go wrong? Were there no tears?"

"Well, of course, sometimes things went wrong. But it was quite, quite different then."

"You believe that your father loved you then, don't you, Helen?"

"I know he did."

"And yet, loving you as he did, he saw that you must have some better training than he was able to give you; and he wished to make a happy home for you. He did his best for you, and you make things very hard for him. I think he might truly say that his little daughter does not love him."

"But I do, even now. I would do anything in the world for him."

"You show your affection very curiously, Helen."

Helen was silent, and Cousin Mary went on. "When one loves a person truly one ceases to think of one's own happiness so much."

"But I can't do anything to make him happy now."

"You could do a very great deal."

"How?"

"By helping to make his home happy, by being respectful and obedient to your stepmother, and by trying to become what she wishes to see you."

"I never could please her if I tried ever so hard."

"But have you ever tried?"

Helen was again silent.

"I know it wouldn't be quite easy at first, dear. But if you were to say to yourself when you feel your temper rising, 'It is for my father's sake,' it would be possible, I think. Love makes so many things easy."

Helen lay very still. There was silence for a few minutes, and then Cousin Mary spoke again. "You were rude yesterday evening, my child; your father was quite right to reprove you. You caused him a great deal of pain. Won't you make amends to him by telling him and your stepmother that you are sorry?"

Still no reply from Helen, and Cousin Mary was heaving a sigh of disappointment, when suddenly the bed-clothes were flung violently on one side, and Helen sprang to her feet.

"I will go at once," she exclaimed. "She—I mean mamma—can't be in bed yet. I shall be able to go to sleep when I have seen her and kissed my father. And I suppose, Cousin Mary, that I ought to tell her that I ran away from Miss Walker to-day. Well, never mind, I will tell it all, and then I shall start fresh to-morrow. Wherever can my dressing-gown be?"

Cousin Mary had some difficulty in dissuading this impulsive child from executing her project. Miss Macleod, however, shrewdly suspected that Mrs. Desmond would decline to receive her stepdaughter's apologies at that late hour, and that a fresh scene would be the only outcome of such an injudicious proceeding. Helen, rather crestfallen, at length allowed herself to be coaxed back into bed again, and then Cousin Mary crept down to the smoking-room and persuaded the colonel, who was sitting rather gloomily over his expiring fire, to come upstairs and say good-night to his repentant daughter. He did not require much persuasion, and the moonlight shone through the little attic window upon three very happy faces, as Cousin Mary looked on at the reconciliation of father and daughter.

"A thousand thanks for looking after my little girl," whispered the colonel to Mary as they went down-stairs together. "She—she——"

"She has the makings of a fine woman," interposed the latter warmly, "but you must not repress her too much. Send her away from home. It will be best, believe me."

"Well, well, we must see," returned the colonel hesitatingly. "I must talk it over with Margaret. And, by the bye, let us say nothing of what has taken place to-night until Helen has made her peace. You understand. Good night, good night!"

So saying, and walking very cautiously, the colonel crept down-stairs to his own quarters, while Cousin Mary, shrugging her shoulders a little impatiently, sought her own room.

As for Helen, she was soon asleep and dreaming of dainty feasts in which she was participating. She had been dreadfully hungry, for she had indignantly refused to eat the only food that had been brought to her in her disgrace. In the sincerity of her penitence, however, she resolved to bear the pangs of hunger in dignified silence, and if her dream-feasts were not very satisfying they answered their purpose, for the hours flew by and she never stirred until the morning.

CHAPTER III.

HELEN'S ESCAPADE.

Helen was standing in the hall listening to the retreating wheels of the cab that bore Cousin Mary away, and trying hard to keep back her tears. It was the late afternoon of an early spring day. Spring, as is its custom with us, had come suddenly; the air was soft and balmy, and the open hall door revealed a vista of delicate green that had fallen like a cloud upon the gaunt trees that filled the grimy London square. Even the servant lingered at the open door, closing it at last reluctantly as though loth to shut out the warm air and pleasant prospect.

It was just such a day as stirs the blood of even old people, while it sets young hearts beating, and conjures up before youthful eyes all sorts of pleasant visions. To Helen, accustomed for so many years to a cloudless eastern sky, the sunshine, although it brought her renewed life, brought also vague indefinable longings. London with its endless streets and squares, its never-ending succession of human beings, its saddening sights and sounds, seemed to stifle her. She longed, scarcely