And Mrs. Roberts stopped and gazed about her.  “Think, for instance, my dear,” she went on, “of having to be content with this dingy little room, after having seen that magnificent place of his!  Do you know, Helen, dear, that I really envy you; and it seems quite ridiculous to come over here and find you moping around.  One would think you were a hermit and did not care anything about life.”

“I do care about it,” said the other, “and I love beautiful things and all; but, Aunt Polly, I can’t help thinking it’s dreadful to have to marry.”

“Come and learn to like Mr. Harrison,” said the other, cheerfully.  “Helen, you are really too weak to ruin your peace of mind in this way; for you could see if you chose that all your troubles are of your own making, and that if you were really determined to be happy, you could do it.  Why don’t you, dear?”

“I don’t know,” protested the girl, faintly; “perhaps I am weak, but I can’t help it.”

“Of course not,” laughed the other, “if you spend your afternoons shut up in a half-dark room like this.  When you come with me you won’t be able to do that way; and I tell you you’ll find there’s nothing like having social duties and an appearance to maintain in the world to keep one cheerful.  If you didn’t have me at your elbow I really believe you’d go all to pieces.”

“I fear I should,” said the girl; but she could not help laughing as she allowed herself to be led upstairs, and to have the dust bathed from her face and the wrinkles smoothed from her brow.  In the meantime her diplomatic aunt was unobtrusively dropping as many hints as she could think of to stir Helen to a sense of the fact that she had suddenly become a person of consequence; and whether it was these hints or merely the reaction natural to Helen, it is certain that she was much calmer when she went down to the carriage, and much more disposed to resign herself to meeting Mr. Harrison again.  And Mrs. Roberts was correspondingly glad that she had been foreseeing enough to come and carry her away; she had great confidence in her ability to keep Helen from foolish worrying, and to interest her in the great future that was before her.

“And then it’s just as well that she should be at my house where she can find the comfort that she loves,” she reflected.  “I can see that she learns to love it more every day.”

The great thing, of course, was to keep her ambition as much awake as possible, and so during the drive home Mrs. Roberts’ conversation was of the excitement which the announcement of Helen’s engagement would create in the social world, and of the brilliant triumph which the rest of her life would be, and of the vast preparations which she was to make for it.  The trousseau soon came in for mention then; and what woman could have been indifferent to a trousseau, even for a marriage which she dreaded?  After that the conversation was no longer a task, for Helen’s animation never failed to build itself up when it was once awake; she was so pleased and eager that the drive was over before she knew it, and before she had had time for even one unpleasant thought about meeting Mr. Harrison.