This, the waywardness of their flock in indulging in every Briton's birthright, the privilege of private judgment, was a congenial topic with the worthy couple. In its discussion they temporarily forgot their grievances against Mrs. Desmond, who, meanwhile, with Helen seated beside her, drove home in silence. The root of her increased bitterness against her stepdaughter lay in that little incident that had occurred in the morning. But of this Helen could not be aware, and the poor child, recalling all her good resolutions, began once more to exaggerate her own shortcomings, and to wonder miserably why it was that she was so hopelessly stupid and bad. And yet, in spite of everything, she did not regret her visit to the Rectory. Agatha and Grace might be cold and disagreeable, and sneer at her whenever she opened her lips, but Harold with his eager face and his odd fancies was quite different. If only she and Harold might meet sometimes, she felt that she could bear the snubs of his family with a good deal of equanimity. And in planning how she could help Harold, and how she could manage to interest her father in her new friend, Helen forgot her own wrongs, and forgot even to be angry when her stepmother told her that her company would not be required in the drawing-room that evening. When our heads are full of others it is wonderful how insignificant our own personal concerns become.
CHAPTER VI.
HAROLD.
Helen's attempts to interest her father in Harold were crowned with success almost beyond her hopes. Colonel Desmond, who was fond of children, had been already attracted by the boy's singularly handsome face, and having a certain turn for mechanics himself, he was disposed to be sympathetic over Harold's futile efforts to construct organs out of cardboard and to model engines from blocks of wood. More than this, it pleased the colonel to see his little daughter and her small friend together. They had, indeed, an excellent effect upon one another. Both naturally wilful and wayward with others, they seemed to have but one will when together. Harold, who was accustomed to be alternately teased and bullied by his sisters, to be wept over by his mother, and to be treated as a dangerous if beloved animal by his father, looked upon Helen as a superior being, on whose sympathy he could always count, who, in some curious way, understood that it was not the object of his life to outrage the feelings of those around him, and to whom he could safely confide his dearest and most secret projects without fear of ridicule. As for Helen, her feelings for her new friend partook of a motherly as well as of a sisterly character. Her added years and her larger experience, so far from giving her any desire to domineer over Harold, aroused in her heart a sort of tenderness for him, which his sister's treatment of him and the want of sympathy which he experienced at home tended to foster. With regard to Harold's talents Helen had no misgivings; and she was ready to listen patiently for hours whilst he unfolded his schemes to her, ascribing to her own dullness and want of comprehension the seeming vagueness of some of these schemes, promising eagerly to help him in the working out of certain dull yet necessary details of the sort which aspiring geniuses of all ages have been disposed to shirk.
It must not be supposed that this happy friendship was recognized at once by the children's respective belongings. Indeed, had it not been for the colonel's unwonted firmness, the probability is that Harold and Helen, after their first meeting, would have been kept resolutely apart.
"The colonel seems to have taken a fancy to Harold," said Mr. Bayden to his wife one day when Colonel Desmond and Helen had called and invited the boy to accompany them on some distant expedition.
"Such a pity that it was not Agatha!" sighed Mrs. Bayden, taking up a fresh stocking from her heaped-up basket.
Mrs. Bayden was not the only person who considered it a pity that the colonel's fancy had been taken by Harold.
"I could have endured Agatha, but why you choose to annoy me by having that rough boy continually here I cannot understand," observed Mrs. Desmond to her husband.