"I never could please her if I tried ever so hard."
"But have you ever tried?"
Helen was again silent.
"I know it wouldn't be quite easy at first, dear. But if you were to say to yourself when you feel your temper rising, 'It is for my father's sake,' it would be possible, I think. Love makes so many things easy."
Helen lay very still. There was silence for a few minutes, and then Cousin Mary spoke again. "You were rude yesterday evening, my child; your father was quite right to reprove you. You caused him a great deal of pain. Won't you make amends to him by telling him and your stepmother that you are sorry?"
Still no reply from Helen, and Cousin Mary was heaving a sigh of disappointment, when suddenly the bed-clothes were flung violently on one side, and Helen sprang to her feet.
"I will go at once," she exclaimed. "She—I mean mamma—can't be in bed yet. I shall be able to go to sleep when I have seen her and kissed my father. And I suppose, Cousin Mary, that I ought to tell her that I ran away from Miss Walker to-day. Well, never mind, I will tell it all, and then I shall start fresh to-morrow. Wherever can my dressing-gown be?"
Cousin Mary had some difficulty in dissuading this impulsive child from executing her project. Miss Macleod, however, shrewdly suspected that Mrs. Desmond would decline to receive her stepdaughter's apologies at that late hour, and that a fresh scene would be the only outcome of such an injudicious proceeding. Helen, rather crestfallen, at length allowed herself to be coaxed back into bed again, and then Cousin Mary crept down to the smoking-room and persuaded the colonel, who was sitting rather gloomily over his expiring fire, to come upstairs and say good-night to his repentant daughter. He did not require much persuasion, and the moonlight shone through the little attic window upon three very happy faces, as Cousin Mary looked on at the reconciliation of father and daughter.
"A thousand thanks for looking after my little girl," whispered the colonel to Mary as they went down-stairs together. "She—she——"
"She has the makings of a fine woman," interposed the latter warmly, "but you must not repress her too much. Send her away from home. It will be best, believe me."