“You don’t realize, Helen, how you treat Mr. Harrison,” she went on, as the girl shuddered; “and how patient he is.  You’d not find many men like him in that respect, my dear.  For he’s madly in love with you, and you treat him as coldly as if he were a stranger.  I can see that, for I watch you, and I can see how it offends him.  You have promised to be his wife, Helen, and yet you behave in this ridiculous way.  You are making yourself ill, and you look years older every day, yet you make not the least attempt to conquer yourself.”

So she went on, and Helen began to feel more and more that she was doing a very great wrong indeed.  Mrs. Roberts’ sharp questioning finally drew from her the story of her reception of Mr. Harrison’s one kiss, and Helen was made to seem quite ridiculous and even rude in her own eyes; her aunt lectured her with such unaccustomed sternness that she was completely frightened, and came to look upon her action as the cause of all the rest of her misery.

“It’s precisely on that account that you still regard him as a stranger,” Mrs. Roberts vowed; “of course he makes no more advances, and you might go on forever in that way.”  Helen promised that the next time she was alone with Mr. Harrison she would apologize for her rudeness, and treat him in a different manner.

“I wish,” Mrs. Roberts went on, “that I could only make you see as plainly as I see, Helen, how very absurd your conduct is.  Day by day you are filling your mind with the thought of the triumph that is to be yours, so that it takes hold of you and becomes all your life to you; and all the time you know that to possess it there is one thing which you have got to do.  And instead of realizing the fact and reconciling yourself to it, you sit down and torment yourself as if you were a creature without reason or will.  Can you not see that you must be wretched?”

“Yes, I see,” said Helen, weakly.

“You see it, but you make no effort to do anything else!  You make me almost give you up in despair.  You will not see that this weakness has only to be conquered once, and that then your life can be happy!”

“But, Auntie, dear,” exclaimed Helen, “it is so hard!”

“Anything in life would be hard for a person who had no more resolution than you,” responded the other.  “Because you know nothing about the world, you fancy you are doing something very unusual and dreadful; but I assure you it’s what every girl has to do when she marries in society.  And there’s no one of them but would laugh at your behavior; you just give Mr. Harrison up, and see how long it would be before somebody else would take him!  Oh, child, how I wish I could give you a little of my energy; you would go to the life that is before you in a very different way, I promise you!  For really the only way that you can have any happiness in the world is to be strong and take it, and if you once had a purpose and some determination you would feel like a different person.  Make up your mind what you wish to do, Helen, and go and do it, and take hold of yourself and master yourself, and show what you are made of!”