it is a pride that never offended any one. You know there are some
flowers that we call proud. The pride of the flower is not more harmless
than my mother's. But perhaps pride is not the right word,--it is rather
the aversion to anything low or mean, the admiration for everything pure
and high. Ah, how that very pride--if pride it be--will make her love
you, my Helen!"

"You need not tell me," said Helen, smiling seriously, "that I shall love
your mother,--I love her already; nay, from the first moment you said you
had a mother, my heart leaped to her. Your mother,--if ever you are
really jealous, it must be of her! But that she should love me,--that is
what I doubt and fear. For if you were my brother, Percival, I should be
so ambitious for you. A nymph must rise from the stream, a sylphid from
the rose, before I could allow another to steal you from my side. And if
I think I should feel this only as your sister, what can be precious
enough to satisfy a mother?"

"You, and you only," answered Percival, with his blithesome laugh,--"you,
my sweet Helen, much better than nymph or sylphid, about whom, between
ourselves, I never cared three straws, even in a poem. How pleased you
will be with Laughton! Do you know, I was lying awake all last night to
consider what room you would like best for your own? And at last I have
decided. Come, listen,--it opens from the music-gallery that overhangs
the hall. From the window you overlook the southern side of the park,
and catch a view of the lake beyond. There are two niches in the wall,--
one for your piano, one for your favourite books. It is just large
enough to hold four persons with ease,--our mother and myself, your aunt,
whom by that time we shall have petted into good humour; and if we can
coax Ardworth there,--the best good fellow that ever lived,--I think our
party will be complete. By the way, I am uneasy about Ardworth, it is so