So soon as her duties would permit, Madame hastened to make her apologies to Mrs. Maxon.
"I fear you will distrust my judgment," she said, "in placing your daughter in close companionship with that young lady. But really, the strange outburst from Miss King is wholly unaccountable to me. I cannot understand where she contracted such ideas."
"I think I can," Mrs. Maxon answered, quietly, remembering Helena's references to her friend in her letters. "I am about to take the young lady home with me, and I hope I can rid her of some of her morbid ideas. It is well for young ladies to make marriage a secondary, not the first consideration of life; but it is very unfortunate to view the matter through Miss King's diseased eyes. There must be some cause for her peculiar state of mind. I shall try and fathom it."
[CHAPTER V.]
A YOUNG CYNIC.
RS. MAXON sat on the pleasant veranda of her home, at Elm Hill, with a snowy piece of needlework in her hands.
Mr. Maxon lounged back in a rustic chair, smoking a fragrant cigar. Dolores swung lazily in a hammock near by, a beautiful picture of indolent repose.