She regarded me curiously. "Is grandpa rich?" she asked. "He says sometimes that the greenhouses cost so much money that they will send him to the poorhouse. I do not think grandpa can be rich. But if he were rich," she cried out indignantly, "that makes no difference: he has nothing but me—nothing to care about. There was poor grandmamma: she died—oh so long ago!—and my uncles died when they were little boys not so old as I. And mamma—she stayed the longest: then she died. No, grandpa has nothing left but me."
"Your father too: he has only you. I wonder you do not live with your father, Helen."
She shook her head. "Oh, you don't know," she returned. "I couldn't leave grandpa. Oh, Floyd, if you knew how it hurts me to tell papa that I must stay here! He does not understand. He will say, 'I want my little girl: you can't guess how badly I want my little girl.'" She finished with a great sob which shook her from head to foot. I pitied her very much, and I could easily comprehend that she was too delicate still to be allowed to have any sort of trouble. So I asked her to go down to the shore with me, and while we went I told her all the funny things I could remember until I made her laugh. She was quick and sympathetic; and her spirit was so strong, yet so repressed, that the moment she was really glad it seemed to have the exuberance of a bird's joy at freedom after imprisonment.
I have reason, beyond that of mere admiration for its admirable picturesqueness, to remember and note down the form of the shore at The Headlands. The house stood on the highest part of the promontory, and there was a gradual descent to the end of the bluff, which terminated in a line of black rocks, some of which were firmly embedded in the soil, while others lay piled above each other as they had been tossed by some horrible convulsion of the sea. In one place there was a perpendicular precipice of eighty feet, washed by the waves at its base; but the beach was easily accessible from every other point, although in some places the descent needed sure feet and agile limbs. But I had always been the best climber in Belfield, and I ran up and down the rocks now with the ease of a monkey, until Helen begged me not to terrify her by any new exploits. Under the frowning citadel of rocks the beach was particularly fine,[page 201] well pebbled below watermark and above a strip of shining sand. The tide was coming in with a strong dull roar, and every wave broke on the shore with curling cataracts of foam and a voice like thunder. It was hard for me to realize that above us on the headland the mild October sunshine was gilding and reddening the trees, for here we were in shadow, and the cry of storm and the din of tempest were in our ears. Yet beyond the bar opaline tints were playing along the sunlit sea, and the luminous, shifting-hued swell of crested waves merged into the iridescent sky. There was a secret and a mystery about the scene to me. I could not understand its influence upon me, and felt under a spell as I gazed at the distant white sails and listened to the roar of the waves as if I could never hear it enough.
After Helen had shown me all the strange, beautiful places of the beach, I helped her up the precipitous bank, where steps had been carefully cut in the rock or laid upon the crumbling sods. She took me to the stables, and I saw the horses, her pony and the blooded colt in training for her: her dogs had followed us about, leaping and fawning upon her and smelling suspiciously at me. Mr. Raymond disliked animals, and it was to the stables or the gardener's cottage that the child came to pet her hounds, her sheep-dog and her snowy Pomeranian: not even Beppo, the Italian greyhound, was domesticated at the house. Some shy deer peered out at us from their paddock, and a doe, less timid than the rest, approached us and gave me a good look out of her meek, beautiful eyes. Gold and silver pheasants lurked in the shrubberies, and peacocks spread their tails and paraded before us on the greensward. Everything seemed to be Helen's, and not a flower that bloomed or a bird that flew but she gave it an ample tenderness.
We did not talk much, but stood together hand in hand, I gazing with ardent delight and curiosity at all these beautiful expressions of life which filled the place.
"Do you like it?" she inquired anxiously from time to time, and when I answered her gravely that I liked it, she would smile a contented little smile. She asked me if I rode, and carefully selected the horse she considered suitable for me, and gave the groom orders about exercising him regularly. The man took her instructions with a respectful air: she was evidently mistress of the place, and the centurion in the Gospel had not his servants better under his command than had she. It was a quaint sight to see the child knitting her brows over some complaint of Robinson's against McGill the gardener: she settled it promptly with but half a dozen words. She had energy enough and to spare for her duties, but she had nothing of that eager bubbling up of light thoughts and bright hopes which other children know and use in endless chatter and playful gambollings, like puppies and kittens and other happy young things. There was always shrewd purpose behind her few words, and she seemed always on her guard, always ready to act promptly and with decision.
"Why don't you send those men to Mr. Raymond?" I burst out finally. "You ought not to be bothered. What do you know about such things?"
"I know all about them," she returned gravely. "I never let anybody trouble poor grandpapa."
"My mother would not let anything trouble me if she could help it, yet I am a boy and almost fifteen years old."