“Oh, Aunt Polly, you goose!” she cried, flinging one arm about her, “have you really forgotten me that much in three years?”

The other was so relieved at the happy denouement of that fearful tragedy that she could only protest, “Helen, Helen, why do you fool me so?”

“Because you fool me, or try to,” said Helen.  “When you have a sermon to preach on the impropriety of walking in the woods alone with a susceptible young poet, I wish you’d mount formally into the pulpit and begin with the text.”

“My dear,” laughed the other, “you are too quick; but I must confess—­”

“Of course you must,” said the girl; and she folded her hands meekly and looked grave.  “And now I am ready; and if you meet with any difficulties in the course of your sermon, I’ve an expert at home who has preached one hundred and four every year for twenty years, all genuine and no two alike.”

“Helen,” said the other, “I do wish you would talk seriously with me.  You are old enough to be your own mistress now, and to do as you please, but you ought to realize that I have seen the world more than you, and that my advice is worth something.”

“Tell it to me,” said Helen, ceasing to laugh, and leaning back in the carriage and gazing at her aunt.  “What do you want me to do, now that I am home?  I will be really serious if you wish me to, for that does interest me.  I suppose that my education is finished?”

“Yes,” said the other, “it ought to be, certainly; you have had every advantage that a girl can have, a great deal more than I ever had.  And you owe it all to me, Helen,—­you do, really; if it hadn’t been for my insisting you’d have gotten all your education at Hilltown, and you’d have played the piano and sung like Mary Nelson across the way.”

Helen shuddered, and felt that that was cause indeed for gratitude.

“It is true,” said her aunt; “I’ve taken as much interest in you as in any one of my own children, and you must know it.  It was for no reason at all but that I saw what a wonderful woman you promised to become, and I was anxious to help you to the social position that I thought you ought to have.  And now, Helen, the chance is yours if you care to take it.”

“I am taking it, am I not?” asked Helen; “I’m going with you, and I shall be just as charming as I can.”

“Yes, I know,” said the other, smiling a little; “but that is not exactly what I mean.”

“What do you mean?”

“Of course, my dear, you may enter good society a while by visiting me; but that will not be permanently.  You will have to marry into it, Helen dear.”

“Marry!” echoed the girl, taken aback.  “Dear me!”

“You will wish to marry some time,” said the other, “and so you should look forward to it and choose your course.  With your charms, Helen, there is almost nothing that you might not hope for; you must know yourself that you could make any man fall in love with you that you wished.  And you ought to know also that if you only had wealth you could enter any society; for you have good birth, and you will discover that you have more knowledge and more wit than most of the people you meet.”