overflow in the soul where thoughts loose their hold on each other and
swim single and helpless in the flood of emotion,--women know what it
is!

No doubt she was a little frightened and a good deal bewildered, and
that her sympathies were warmly excited for a friend to whom she had
been brought so near, and whose loneliness she saw and pitied. She lost
that calm self-possession she had hoped to maintain.

"If I thought that I could make you happy,--if I should speak from my
heart, and not my reason,--I am but a weak woman,--yet if I can be to
you--What can I say?"

What more could this poor, dear Helen say?

* * * * *

"Elbridge, harness the horses and take Miss Darley back to the school."

What conversation had taken place since Helen's rhetorical failure is
not recorded in the minutes from which this narrative is constructed.
But when the man who had been summoned had gone to get the carriage
ready, Helen resumed something she had been speaking of.

"Not for the world! Everything must go on just as it has gone on, for
the present. There are proprieties to be consulted. I cannot be
hard with you, that out of your very affliction has sprung
this--this--well--you must name it for me,--but the world will never
listen to explanations. I am to be Helen Darley, lady assistant in Mr.
Silas Peckham's school, as long as I see fit to hold my office. And I