"That will be delightful!" said Mrs. Grahame. "I shall be very glad to see Helena again; I have always hoped that when she came back you would see something of her again. She was the one of your schoolmates that my heart always warmed to. How came Mrs. Desmond to be willing to leave Paris? When she went away, she said it was for life."
"Oh, Helena would come!" said Hildegarde. "She told me about it; they must have had a scene. She said to her mother, 'Mamma, I am an American! I have never committed any crime, and I refuse to be exiled from my native country any longer. If you will come with me, it will be much the pleasantest thing; if not, I go alone.' Well, it was not the thing to say, of course, but—"
"I am not sure about that!" said Mrs. Grahame, flushing slightly. "I am inclined to think Helena was perfectly justified. When a woman has not sense enough to guide her daughter, she must submit to be guided. The idea of keeping that girl over there five years, frittering about the continent; preposterous! My sympathy is entirely with Helena."
Mrs. Grahame sat very erect, and her eyes were very bright; then, catching Hildegarde's eyes, full of laughter, she relaxed her muscles, and began to laugh too.
"I am sorry, dear," she said. "I never could like Mrs. Desmond."
"I should think not!" said Hildegarde, promptly. "I should be under the painful necessity of disowning you if you did. But you love Mrs. Honiton, Mammina!"
"Ah, Mrs. Honiton! how could two sisters be so different? It is Margaret Honiton who should be Helena's mother,—they are wonderfully alike."
"Yes. Helena feels that. She is lovely with her mother,—firm, but devoted,—but Aunt Margaret is the one of the world to her. It is a terrible thing for a girl to have an incompetent mother!"
"Yes, darling, it is indeed," said Mrs. Grahame, meekly. "I feel it so in your case. No, don't kill me, Hildegarde! my time is not yet come. Tell me more about Rose and her husband. She is very happy, you say?"
"Happy as the day is long. I told you I did not see Doctor Flower,—the only one I missed, really; he was in Philadelphia. But their house is as pretty as pretty; it is evident that he furnished it,—you know what taste he has; and everywhere roses, roses! carved and painted and embroidered,—it is really the Rose-bower, as he calls it. Her own little sitting-room, up-stairs—oh, such a little rosy-posy nest! rosewood desk,—and everything soft covered with rose-flowered chintz—curtains, too,—and the most de-lightful sofa I ever did see! And her little work-table, and—oh, well, Mammina, I think, after all, that made me happier than anything,—unless it was the sight of Nurse Lucy's face when she recognised me! But, remembering all that Rose suffered, and all the cramped, anxious days and years, and then seeing her, a rose in full bloom, in her own pretty house, with such signs of loving care all about her,—it was good, good!"