So Helen made up her bundle of clothes to be sent after her, took a book or two with her to help her pass the time, and departed for the Dudley mansion.  It was with a great inward effort that she undertook the sisterly task which was thus forced upon her.  She had a kind of terror of Elsie; and the thought of having charge of her, of being alone with her, of coming under the full influence of those diamond eyes,—­if, indeed, their light were not dimmed by suffering and weariness,—­was one she shrank from.  But what could she do?  It might be a turning-point in the life of the poor girl; and she must overcome all her fears, all her repugnance, and go to her rescue.

“Is Helen come?” said Elsie, when she heard, with her fine sense quickened by the irritability of sickness, a light footfall on the stair, with a cadence unlike that of any inmate of the house.

“It’s a strange woman’s step,” said Old Sophy, who, with her exclusive love for Elsie, was naturally disposed to jealousy of a new-comer.  “Lot Ol’ Sophy set at th’ foot o’ th’ bed, if th’ young missis sets by th’ piller,—­won’ y’, darlin’?  The’ ‘s nobody that’s white can love y’ as th’ ol’ black woman does;—­don’ sen’ her away, now, there’s a dear soul!”

Elsie motioned her to sit in the place she had pointed to, and Helen at that moment entered the room.  Dudley Venner followed her.

“She is your patient,” he said, “except while the Doctor is here.  She has been longing to have you with her, and we shall expect you to make her well in a few days.”

So Helen Darley found herself established in the most unexpected manner as an inmate of the Dudley mansion.  She sat with Elsie most of the time, by day and by night, soothing her, and trying to enter into her confidence and affections, if it should prove that this strange creature was really capable of truly sympathetic emotions.

What was this unexplained something which came between her soul and that of every other human being with whom she was in relations?  Helen perceived, or rather felt, that she had, folded up in the depths of her being, a true womanly nature.  Through the cloud that darkened her aspect, now and then a ray would steal forth, which, like the smile of stern and solemn people, was all the more impressive from its contrast with the expression she wore habitually.  It might well be that pain and fatigue had changed her aspect; but, at any rate, Helen looked into her eyes without that nervous agitation which their cold glitter had produced on her when they were full of their natural light.  She felt sure that her mother must have been a lovely, gentle woman.  There were gleams of a beautiful nature shining through some ill-defined medium which disturbed and made them flicker and waver, as distant images do when seen through the rippling upward currents of heated air.  She loved, in her own way, the old black woman, and seemed to keep up a kind of silent communication with her, as if