"Mine?" said Helen. "Oh! I leave all such things as fortune and fame to you and Marion. I mean only to be happy."
"To be happy!" repeated Marion. "Well, I admire your modesty. You have set up for yourself a much more difficult aim than either Claire's or my own. And how do you mean to be happy? That is the next question."
"I don't know," replied Helen, with a laugh. "I just mean to go home to enjoy myself; that is all. And how happy it makes me to think that you are both going with me!"
"Dear little Helen!" said Claire, caressingly. "But it will not make you unhappy to hear that I am not going with you, will it? I have just found out that I can not go."
"Not go!" repeated Helen. The deepest surprise and disappointment were written on her face. "O, Claire, it is impossible that you can mean it—that you can be so unkind! Why do you say such a thing?"
"I say it because it is true, dear; though it is a greater disappointment to me than to you. I have just had a letter from my guardian, telling me he has found an opportunity to send me abroad with a lady, an acquaintance of his own; and I have no choice but to go."
"I should think you would be delighted to find such an opportunity," said Marion. "But surely the lady is not going to Rome at this season?"
"No: she is going to Germany for the summer, and to Italy in the autumn; which is a very good thing, for I shall see the galleries of Dresden and Munich before I go to Rome. Of course I am glad—I must be glad—to find the opportunity at once; but I had promised myself the pleasure of a quiet, happy month with Helen and you, and I am sorry to lose it."
"It is too bad," said Helen, with a sound as of tears in her voice. "I had anticipated so much pleasure in our all three being together! And now—why could not your guardian have waited to find the lady, or why does she not put off going abroad until the autumn?"
"Why, in short, is not the whole scheme of things arranged with reference to one insignificant person called Claire Alford?" replied Claire, laughing. "No, dear; there is no help for it. I must give up the idea of a short rest before the combat."