The Road to Understanding

by Eleanor H. Porter

With a still more painful flush on her face Helen Barnet swept the blocks into her apron, rose to her feet, and hurried the children from the room. She did not once glance at the young man standing by the window.

Mrs. Allen tossed her nephew a smile and a shrug which might have been translated into "You see what we have to endure—so tiresome!" as she, too, disappeared.

Burke Denby did not smile. He did frown, however. He felt vaguely irritated and abused. He wished his aunt would not be so "bossy" and disagreeable. He wished Helen would not act so cringingly submissive. As if she— But then, it would be different right away, of course, as soon as he had made known the fact that she was to be his wife. Everything would be different. For that matter, Helen herself would be different. Not only would she hold her head erect and take her proper place, but she would not—well, there were various little ways and expressions which she would drop, of course. And how beautiful she was! How sweet! How dear! And how she had suffered in her loneliness! How he would love to make for her a future all gloriously happy and tender with his strong, encircling arms!

It was a pleasant picture. Burke Denby's heart quite swelled within him as he turned to leave the room.

Upstairs, the girl, the cause of it all, hurried with palpitating nervousness through the task of clothing two active little bodies in fresh garments. That her thoughts were not with her fingers was evident; but not until the summoning bell from the drawing-room gave her a few minutes' respite from duty did she have an opportunity really to think. Even then she could not think lucidly or connectedly. Always before her eyes was Burke Denby's face, ardent, pleading, confident. And he expected— Before she saw him again she must be ready, she knew, with her answer. But how could she answer?

Helen Barnet was lonely, heartsick, and frightened—a combination that could hardly aid in the making of a wise, unprejudiced decision, especially when one was very much in love. And Helen Barnet knew that she was that.

Less than two years before, Helen Barnet had been the petted daughter of a village storekeeper in a small Vermont town. Then, like the proverbial thunderbolt, had come death and financial disaster, throwing her on her own resources. And not until she had attempted to utilize those resources for her support, had she found how frail they were.

Though the Barnets had not been wealthy, the village store had been profitable; and Helen (the only child) had been almost as greatly overindulged as was Burke Denby himself. Being a very pretty girl, she had become the village belle before she donned long dresses. Having been shielded from work and responsibility, and always carefully guarded from everything unpleasant, she was poorly equipped for a struggle of any sort, even aside from the fact that there was, apparently, nothing that she could do well enough to be paid for doing it. In the past twenty months she had obtained six positions—and had abandoned five of them: two because of incompetency, two because of lack of necessary strength, one because her beauty was plainly making the situation intolerable. For three months now she had been nurse to Masters Paul and Percy Allen. She liked Mrs. Allen, and she liked the children. But the care, the confinement, the never-ending task of dancing attendance upon the whims and tempers of two active little boys, was proving to be not a little irksome to young blood unused to the restraints of self-sacrifice. Then, suddenly, there had come the visit to the Denby homestead, and the advent into her life of Burke Denby; and now here, quite within her reach, if she could believe her eyes and ears, was this dazzling, unbelievable thing—Burke Denby's love.

Helen Barnet knew all about love. Had she not lisped its praises in odes to the moon in her high-school days? It had to do with flowers and music and angels. On the old porch back home—what was it that long-haired boy used to read to her? Oh, Tennyson. That was it.

And now it had come to her—love. Not that it was exactly unexpected: she had been waiting for her lover since she had put up her hair, of course. But to have him come like this—and such a lover! So rich—and he was such a grand, handsome young man, too! And she loved him. She loved him dearly. If only she dared say "yes"! No more poverty, no more loneliness, no more slaving at the beck and call of some hated employer. Oh, if she only dared!