Mrs. Roberts stopped, quite too angry to find any more words; but as she sat for a minute or two, gazing at Helen, it must have occurred to her that she would not accomplish anything in that way.  She made an effort to swallow her emotions.

“Helen, dear,” she said, sitting down near her niece, “why will you worry me in this dreadful way, and make me speak so crossly to you?  I cannot tell you, Helen, what a torment it is to me to see you throwing yourself away in this fashion; I implore you to stop and think before you take this step, for as sure as you are alive you will regret it all your days.  Just think of it how you will feel, and how I will feel, when you look back at the happiness you might have had, and know that it is too late!  And, Helen, it is due to nothing in the world but to your inexperience that you have let yourself be carried away by these sublimities.  You MUST know, child, and you can see if you choose, that they have nothing to do with life; they will not butter your bread, Helen, or pay your coachman, and when you get over all this excitement, you will find that what I tell you is true.  Look about you in the world, and where can you find anybody who lives according to such ideas?”

“What ideas do you mean, Aunt Polly?” asked Helen, with a puzzled look.

“Oh, don’t you suppose,” answered the other, “that I know perfectly well what kind of stuff it is that Mr. Howard has talked to you?  I used to hear all that kind of thing when I was young, and I believed some of it, too,—­about how beautiful it was to marry for love, and to have a fine scorn of wealth and all the rest of it; but it wasn’t very long before I found out that such opinions were of no use in the world.”

“Then you don’t believe in love, Aunt Polly?” asked Helen, fixing her eyes on the other.

“What’s the use of asking such an absurd question?” was the answer.  “Of course I believe in love; I wanted you to love Mr. Harrison, and you might have, if you had chosen.  I learned to love Mr. Roberts; naturally, a couple have to love each other, or how would they ever live happily together?  But what has that to do with this ridiculous talk of Mr. Howard’s?  As if two people had nothing else to do in the world but to love each other!  It’s all very well, Helen, for a man who chooses to live like Robinson Crusoe to talk such nonsense, but he ought not to put it in the mind of a sentimental girl.  He would very soon find, if he came out into life, that the world isn’t run by love, and that people need a good many other things to keep them happy in it.  You ought to have sense enough to see that you’ve got to live a different sort of a life, and that Mr. Howard knows nothing in the world about your needs.  I don’t go alone and live in visions, and make myself imaginary lives, Helen; I look at the world as it is.  You will have to learn some day that the real way to find happiness is to take things as you find them, and get the best out of life you can.  I never had one-tenth of your advantages, and yet there aren’t many people in the world better off than I am; and you could be just as happy, if you would only take my advice about it.  What I am talking to you is common sense, Helen, and anybody that you choose to ask will tell you the same thing.”