"But if she loves to study?"
"Depravity of taste. Spider, ask in this timid fly hovering about your gates," and as Helen stepped back with a gesture of the hand Miss Mays entered and glanced around, though she kept on talking. "Do you like getting settled, and are you not bothered about the right places?—oh," with almost a shriek—"you have that lovely Bodenhausen Madonna! I have the Sichel and I never can decide which I like best. And then Gabriel Marx, and Dangerfield! We're not hopelessly modern, for I have the Sistine. Nearly every girl has it. And oh, who is this handsome woman? A Duchess at the very least!"
"That is—a dear friend," Helen flushed. "That must have been taken when she was younger. She is quite old now."
"Elderly. There may be old men and old peasant women in pictures, but the living women are simply elderly. Well, one wouldn't mind growing old if one could look like that. Have you ever been away at school before?"
"No," returned Helen.
"North, South, East or West? Brevity is the soul of wit. I sometimes set up for a wit when I can do it on a small capital."
"Rather southerly from here," laughed Helen. "A little country place called Hope Center."
"Hope Center. Helen Grant. Well that has a sound! You will do. What else are you going to put up?"
"I haven't anything else."
"That's delightful. Most girls bring so much from home, to cry over. You don't really look like the crying kind. And school girl treasures accumulate fearfully. It's nice to have a place to put the new ones."