the chairs--anywhere. I must confess that Helen's first tidy womanlike
idea was a great desire to arrange the litter. "Poor Leonard," she
thought to herself, "the rest of the house so neat, but no one to take
care of his own room and of him!"

As if he divined her thought, Leonard smiled and said, "It would be a
cruel kindness to the spider, if the gentlest band in the world tried to
set its cobweb to rights."

HELEN.--"You were not quite so bad in the old days."

LEONARD.--"Yet even then you were obliged to take care of the money. I
have more books now, and more money. My present housekeeper lets me take
care of the books, but she is less indulgent as to the money."

HELEN (archly).--"Are you as absent as ever?"

LEONARD.--"Much more so, I fear. The habit is incorrigible,
Miss Digby--"

HELEN.--"Not Miss Digby; sister, if you like."

LEONARD (evading the word that implied so forbidden an affinity).--
"Helen, will you grant me a favour? Your eyes and your smile say 'yes.'
Will you lay aside, for one minute, your shawl and bonnet? What! can you
be surprised that I ask it? Can you not understand that I wish for one
minute to think that you are at home again under this roof?"

Helen cast down her eyes, and seemed troubled; then she raised them, with
a soft angelic candour in their dovelike blue, and, as if in shelter from