"Georgy Lenox here?" I echoed in surprise. "I never heard anything so strange. How did it happen?"
Helen looked at me in her turn in astonishment. "Why was it strange?" she asked, as if regarding the matter in a new light. "She was one of the family: she came to grandpapa's funeral. Cousin Charles Raymond himself invited all the Lenoxes, for Mr. Lenox's mother was a Raymond—was grandpa's own sister, I believe. Why was it strange?"
"Natural for her to come perhaps, but I should not have expected her to remain. You asked her, no doubt?"
"No-o-o," returned Helen doubtfully. "I don't know how it was. The house was filled with people for a week: then they went away and Georgy stayed. She said it was horrid for me to have no lady near me in my trouble. Cousin Charles was here all the time until your mother came, but his wife was ill in New York."
"And when my mother arrived Georgy left you?"
"No, indeed: she is still here. You see," said Helen with a little of her old imperious way when she took control of things, "Georgy was greatly disappointed at the terms of the will. She had been led to expect that she would be quite an heiress when grandpa died. I don't know who taught her to believe in so strange an idea, for, to tell the truth, grandpapa did not fancy Georgy. Poor girl! everything has gone wrong with her. She was to have been married to Mr. Holt, you know, but it is all quite broken off; and she was very unhappy about that. She hates being in Belfield, because she sees him all the time, and is reminded of what she is trying to forget. So I asked her to stay here for a little while. You are not angry to find her here, Floyd?"
I laughed with an indefinable feeling of embarrassment. "I shall be most happy to see Miss Lenox," I rejoined; "and if I were not, it would be great impertinence in me to question for a moment the doings of the lady of the house."
"I am not the lady of the house," said she, a little piqued. "Mrs. Randolph is that. I give no orders now: everybody goes to papa. He says I have governed too long, and that I must be a little girl again. It seems so strange sometimes to have nobody consult me: I do nothing all day long but enjoy myself."
"But I belong to the old régime," said I, "and to me you will always be the châtelaine. I remember how you used to give orders to Mills and Mrs. Black: I can still smell the aromatic odors of the store-room when we used to make the weekly survey together, and can hear you talking 'horse' solemnly with the coachman down at the stables. I am not at all sure if I shall like you so well as a gay young lady of pleasure, with all your thoughts on your dresses and your lovers."
"As if I should ever think about my dresses or my lovers!" she replied with deep disdain.