A few days later I asked Helen, "Have you made up your mind what answer
to give M. Vergniaud? He intends to write to your father. He was
speaking to me about it again to-day."

"I won't have him writing to my father," she replied with her wonted
impetuosity. "I will not have my father worried about nothing. It would
be a month before I could set it right."

"He seems to be very much in love with you. He says he shall be in
despair, wretched for ever, if you reject him."

"So they all say. I don't believe a word of it, and I can't help it if
they are. I can't marry more than one of them, and I don't believe I
shall ever marry anybody. I won't be persecuted to death."

The little princess was irritated. Something had evidently gone wrong.
It soon came out: "I had a letter from Fred this morning--a very
disagreeable letter."

"Indeed! You have not yet answered it, I suppose."

"No: he will have to write differently from that before he gets any
answer from me. I am not going to be lessoned and scolded as if I were a
little girl. Father never does it, and I will not submit to it from
_him_" After a pause: "He is not so much to blame. It is that
odious Mr. Wilkins, who keeps writing to him how much attention I
receive, and all that. As if I could help it! Poor old Fred! We have
known each other ever since we were children."

That explains it, I thought. "Helen, if you have decided to say no to M.