respect. To her, love seemed so necessary a thing in the helplessness of
human life, even when blessed with health and youth, that this rejection
of all love in one so bowed and crippled, struck her imagination as
something sublime in its dreary grandeur and stoic pride of independence.
She regarded it as of old a tender and pious nun would have regarded the
asceticism of some sanctified recluse,--as Theresa (had she lived in the
same age) might have regarded Saint Simeon Stylites existing aloft from
human sympathy on the roofless summit of his column of stone; and with
this feeling she sought to inspire Percival. He had the heart to enter
into her compassion, but not the imagination to sympathize with her
reverence. Even the repugnant awe that he had first conceived for Madame
Dalibard, so bold was he by temperament, he had long since cast off; he
recognized only the moroseness and petulance of an habitual invalid, and
shook playfully his glossy curls when Helen, with her sweet seriousness,
insisted on his recognizing more.

To this house few, indeed, were the visitors admitted. The Miverses,
whom the benevolent officiousness of Mr. Fielden had originally sent
thither to see their young kinswoman, now and then came to press Helen to
join some party to the theatre or Vauxhall, or a picnic in Richmond Park;
but when they found their overtures, which had at first been politely
accepted by Madame Dalibard, were rejected, they gradually ceased their
visits, wounded and indignant.

Certain it was that Lucretia had at one time eagerly caught at their
well-meant civilities to Helen,--now she as abruptly declined them. Why?
It would be hard to plumb into all the black secrets of that heart. It
would have been but natural to her, who shrank from dooming Helen to no
worse calamity than a virgin's grave, to have designed to throw her into
such uncongenial guidance, amidst all the manifold temptations of the