"My dear wife, why should Harold annoy you? He is scarcely ever in the house, and he can't do much harm in the garden."
"He is the most unsatisfactory of my sister's children. Everyone knows that he is a bad boy. Even Richard, who is a perfect idiot about his children, acknowledges that he can do nothing with Harold."
"All I can say is that Bayden is—well, I must not abuse your relations, Margaret. But, believe me, that boy has some good stuff in him. Besides, he is a fine, handsome little chap, and his resemblance to you is quite astonishing. Surely that ought to recommend him to me."
The colonel's speech, although exceedingly diplomatic, was justified by facts. Harold's face, notwithstanding its rounded outlines, did bear a resemblance to his aunt's. She smiled.
"You may say what you like, John, but I can't believe that Harold and Helen can be good companions for one another. If she had taken a fancy even to Grace I should have made no objection."
"Let the children be," returned the colonel a little testily. "Helen looks better already for young companionship, and we cannot force children's likes and dislikes any more than we can our own."
"That, I suppose, you learnt from Mary Macleod," said Mrs. Desmond, the smile fading from her face. "However, I shall say no more. If any harm comes of your foolish indulgence remember that I warned you."
The colonel did not reply. Why his wife had yielded so readily rather puzzled him. But Mrs. Desmond had her own reasons. Helen had long been a thorn in her side, and the pricking of this poor little thorn was fast becoming unendurable to her. She had resolved, therefore, that her stepdaughter must be sent away, and, like a wise woman, she was husbanding all her forces towards the gaining of this important end, and she was well aware that a little complaisance in an unimportant matter of this kind would make her future task easier.
Helen was even more surprised than her father to find that after her unlucky day at the Rectory no embargo was put upon her intercourse with Harold. How it came about neither they nor their elders exactly knew, but through the long June days the two children were constantly together, either working in a rough workshop which the colonel had extemporized for them in an outbuilding, or rambling about the country in search of flowers and butterflies. Notwithstanding Mrs. Desmond's determination about Helen's future, it is scarcely likely that she could have witnessed her stepdaughter leading a life so opposed to her own preconceived notions without remonstrance had she not been really suffering from the effects of her long anxiety in the spring, and disposed for the first time in her life to let things take their course.
It was a very happy time for Helen, the happiest, perhaps, that she had ever known. In the old days, when all her desires were gratified, her waywardness and wilfulness had thrown a cloud over everything. Now she was honestly trying to do what was right and to keep her temper under due control, whilst healthy, sympathetic companionship kept her mind occupied and prevented her from dwelling upon morbid fancies.