“Tell it to me,” said Helen, ceasing to laugh, and leaning back in the carriage and gazing at her aunt. “What do you want me to do, now that I am home? I will be really serious if you wish me to, for that does interest me. I suppose that my education is finished?”
“Yes,” said the other, “it ought to be, certainly; you have had every advantage that a girl can have, a great deal more than I ever had. And you owe it all to me, Helen,—you do, really; if it hadn't been for my insisting you'd have gotten all your education at Hilltown, and you'd have played the piano and sung like Mary Nelson across the way.”
Helen shuddered, and felt that that was cause indeed for gratitude.
“It is true,” said her aunt; “I've taken as much interest in you as in any one of my own children, and you must know it. It was for no reason at all but that I saw what a wonderful woman you promised to become, and I was anxious to help you to the social position that I thought you ought to have. And now, Helen, the chance is yours if you care to take it.”
“I am taking it, am I not?” asked Helen; “I'm going with you, and I shall be just as charming as I can.”
“Yes, I know,” said the other, smiling a little; “but that is not exactly what I mean.”
“What do you mean?”
“Of course, my dear, you may enter good society a while by visiting me; but that will not be permanently. You will have to marry into it, Helen dear.”
“Marry!” echoed the girl, taken aback. “Dear me!”
“You will wish to marry some time,” said the other, “and so you should look forward to it and choose your course. With your charms, Helen, there is almost nothing that you might not hope for; you must know yourself that you could make any man fall in love with you that you wished. And you ought to know also that if you only had wealth you could enter any society; for you have good birth, and you will discover that you have more knowledge and more wit than most of the people you meet.”