“That accounts,” said Mrs. Laudersdale.

“Yes.  But just think what a life!”

“He wouldn’t stay, if he didn’t like,” replied Mrs. Laudersdale, to whom the words poverty and riches conveyed not the least idea.

“I don’t know.  He has an uncle, of whom he is very fond, in India,” continued Helen,—­“an unfortunate kind of man, with whom everything goes wrong, and who is always taking fevers; and once or twice Mr. Raleigh has started to go and take care of him, and lose the whole estate by the means.  He intends to endow him, I believe, by-and-by, when the thing is at his disposal.  This uncle kept him at school, when he was an orphan in different circumstances, at a Jesuit institution; and he and Miss Kent were always quarrelling over him, and she thought she had tied up her property nicely out of old Reuben Raleigh’s way.  It will be nuts, if he ever accepts his nephew’s proposed present.  The best of it all is, that, if he breaks the condition,—­there’s no accounting for the caprices of wills,—­part of it goes to a needy institution, and part of it inalienably to Mrs. McLean, who”—­

“Is an institution, too.”

“Who is not needy.  There, isn’t that a pretty little conte?”

“Very,” said Mrs. Laudersdale, having listened with increasing interest.  “But, Helen, you’ll be a gossip, if you go on and prosper.”

“Why, my dear child!  He’ll be over here every day now; and do you suppose I’m going to flirt with any one, when I don’t know his antecedents?  There he is now!”

And as Mrs. Laudersdale turned, she saw Mr. Raleigh standing composedly in the doorway and surveying them.  She bade him good-morning, coolly enough, while Helen began searching the grounds of the tea-cups, rather uncertain how much of her recital might have met his ears.

“Turning tea-cups, Gypsy Helen, and telling fates, all to no audience, and with no cross on your palm?” asked the guest.

“So you ignore Mrs. Laudersdale?”

“Not at all; you weren’t looking at her cup,—­if she has one.  Will you have the morning paper?” he asked of that lady, who, receiving it, leisurely unfolded and glanced over its extent.

“Where’s my Cousin Kate?” then demanded Mr. Raleigh of Helen, having regarded this performance.

“Gone shopping in town.”

“Her vocation.  For the day?”

“No,—­it is time for their return now.  When you hear wheels”—­

“I hear them”; and he strolled to the window.  “You should have said, when I heard tongues; Medes and Elamites and the dwellers in Mesopotamia were less cheerful.  A very pretty team.  So she took her conjugal appurtenance with her?”

“And left her cousinly impertinence behind her,” retorted a gay voice from his elbow.

“Ah, Kate! are you there?  It’s not a moment since I saw you ’coming from the town.’  A pretty hostess, you!  I arrive on your invitation to pass the day”—­