second message from home had been received by Helene DeBerczy,
reminding her that her invalid mother had claims which could no longer
be set aside. If Madame DeBerczy's language was seldom imperative, her
intention abundantly made up for the deficiency. Consequently, her
daughter was now reluctantly turning her face homeward--a dull
outlook, brightened only by the prospect of a boat-ride down the bay
with Edward and Rose.

"And to think," said Edward to Helene, as the trio paced the long
avenue together, "that I scarcely recognized you on the evening of my
return!"

"That is not surprising. I am an entirely different person from the
one you left three years ago."

"Let me see," mused the young man, "three years ago you were a little
inclined to be haughty and cold, occasionally difficult to please, and
sometimes exacting. On the whole, 'tis pleasant to reflect that you
are an entirely different person now."

He turned towards her with a merry glance, but her face was invisible.
She wore one of those long straw bonnets, no doubt esteemed very
pretty and stylish in that day, but marred by what a disciple of
Fowler might call a remarkable phrenological development of the
anterior portion. This severely intellectual quality in the bonnets of
that time naturally stood in the way of the merely sensuous delights
of observation. Edward had barely time to be reminded of an unused
well, in whose dark, shallow depths his boyish eyes had once
discovered a cluster of white water-lilies, languidly opening to the
light, when the liquid eyes and lily-like face in the inner vista of