complied after a little deliberation. Helen's visit had lasted
longer than at first proposed, and she only returned home, after an
absence of five months, just in time to wish her little brother
farewell, on his departure for school, a few weeks before the
Consecration of St. Austin's. Lady Merton would have been glad to
read Mrs. Woodbourne all the admiration of Helen, which Mrs. Staunton
had poured forth to her in a letter written a short time before; but
the terms in which it was expressed were more exaggerated than Lady
Merton liked to shew to one who was not acquainted with Mrs.
Staunton, and besides, her praise of Helen was full of comparison
with her mother.

Visiting Abbeychurch was always painful to Lady Merton, and her
manner, usually rather cold, was still more constrained when she was
there; for, although both she and Sir Edward had been very careful
not to shew any want of cordiality towards Mr. and Mrs. Woodbourne,
they could not but feel that the Vicarage never could be to them what
it once had been. It was certainly quite impossible not to have an
affection for its present gentle kind-hearted mistress; and Lady
Merton felt exceedingly grateful to her, for having, some years ago,
nursed Rupert through a dangerous attack of scarlet-fever, with which
he had been seized at Abbeychurch, when on his way from school, when
she herself had been prevented by illness from coming to him; and
Mrs. Woodbourne, making light of her anxiety for her own children,
had done all that the most affectionate mother could have done for
him, and had shewn more energy than almost anyone had believed her to
possess, comforting Sir Edward with hopes and cheerful looks,
soothing the boy's waywardness, and bearing with his fretfulness in
his recovery, as none but a mother, or a friend as gentle as Mrs.
Woodbourne, could have done. Still, much as she loved Mrs.