How her face changed with every new thought.
"Really you have been making strides. Helen, you are not going to be satisfied with a holiday to see Belle Aurore. You are going to ask greater things."
"And Herve Riel ought to have been given greater things when he had saved the ships for his country. Am I foolish to aim at the greater things?"
Her eyes were sparkling, and a brilliant color suffused her face, while the scarlet lips were quivering with emotion and resolve.
"I should like you to reach them. Have you any plans?" His interest was thoroughly awakened.
"Mrs. Dayton has been so kind, a real friend. I don"t mean that Aunt Jane and Uncle Jason are not real friends. They have been very good to care for me since father died. Isn"t it in not understanding just what satisfies you down in your soul. Jenny is very happy working in the factory. I should just hate it. And, oh, I think it would be dreadful for her to sit and read to Mrs. Van Dorn," laughing with a gay ripple.
"We have talked, but not settled upon anything definite. Mrs. Dayton thinks she might find someone who would give me my board for what I could do nights and mornings and Sat.u.r.days, and she would help me out with clothes, for I know Aunt Jane would be very angry if I went against her wishes. And Mrs. Dayton wouldn"t need me. She has Joanna, you know.
Then, too, she goes away in the autumn----"
"Well, I must say you have gone pretty far along in plans. I felt quite discouraged last night, though I imagine I might have talked Uncle Jason into doing something for you. But your aunt thinks three years spent in learning to teach, and not being able to earn a dollar for yourself, is an awful waste of time. As if that was all there was to it!"
disdainfully. "Helen, I could find it in my heart to wish you were my sister, then I could come to the rescue."
"Oh!" There was a world of exquisite delight in the tone that touched him to the very soul. "If I were! Why can"t some people be in the places they would like? Some people are!" with an odd humorous laugh. "And it is the dissatisfaction that stirs you up; makes you ambitious. What is it that keeps up the dissatisfaction?" glancing at him with the smile still on her parted lips, yet full of perplexity.
"The knowledge that you are capable of doing something better, finer. If you were deficient in that, you could go to work cheerfully in the factory. You would enjoy a.s.sociating with the girls."
"And then having a beau and marrying," she laughed. "Oh, I like books so much better, and knowing about the world."
"What of the examination papers. Have you found any time for them?"
"Oh, yes. There were some books in the library that helped. And such a splendid encyclopaedia! I wrote them out once, and then I read a great deal more, and wrote them over again. I"ll give them to you, and you must consider how good a chance I have of pa.s.sing. Oh, if I should fail!"
"You could go in later on. I do not think you will. I have wondered about you so many times this summer, and I have always seen you under the disadvantages of the Center, and the few helps you would have. You might have written me a letter."
"Oh, did you mean that I should?"
She asked it in sweet, eager unconsciousness, which showed that it would have been a pleasure. He had not suggested it from a wonder as to whether Aunt Jane would approve.
"I should have enjoyed an answer about your new life," he replied with interest. "I am very glad this happened to you instead of an uneventful summer on the farm and retrograding, I am afraid. And you like this"--old lady, he was about to say, but checked himself--"this Mrs.
Van Dorn."
"It"s something more than _like_. I cannot describe it in any word, that I know, unless it is like something I was reading a few days ago, fascination. When she talks about the places and people she has seen it seems as if I could listen forever. And then, you may think this queer,"
and she colored vividly, "sometimes I like Mrs. Dayton the best. I wish I didn"t change about so. It is the same with books. Am I very inconstant, fickle?"
"If we couldn"t change our minds, think what fossils we should soon be,"
and he laughed good-humoredly. "Yes, I should like to see her."
She started, then she came back a step. "I have not really talked over the plan of--of earning my way with her," and her voice fell a little.
"Mrs. Dayton thought it best not to say anything until we had some certainty. She is going away soon. Her real companion comes next week."
He nodded that he understood the delicate charge. "And where is Mrs.
Dayton?"
"She went to market, and to do various errands. I should like you to talk to her about it."
"Yes, I want to," he replied decisively.
Helen went upstairs and was gone quite a while. He was thinking of the bright, earnest, energetic girl, willing to work her way. He must plan it out with Mrs. Dayton. She was the one girl out of fifty who could rise above circ.u.mstances. Yet her aunt would be more than vexed, positively angry.
Mrs. Van Dorn experienced a curious pang, when the girl"s face brilliant with a definite emotion, flashed upon her with ardor in every line. What had moved her so? The eyes were luminous, the voice freighted with a new depth.
"Yes," she answered stiffly. "I must see this young man--he is young, isn"t he? It seems to me he has been making a long call."
"Oh, we had so much to talk about, my summer here and all its pleasures, and the knowledge. Why, I told him I felt as if I had been at school all the time, I had learned so many things from you, and that you----"
She paused and flushed, wondering if the talk had been just right in the more delicate sense.
"That I was cross and queer, and full of whims----"
"Oh, I couldn"t say that. It was about your journeys, and the people you had met. And he was so interested."
Mrs. Van Dorn was mollified, and added a few touches to her toilet, picked up a fleecy scarf, came downstairs with her hand on Helen"s shoulder, and was duly presented. The man _was_ young.
But the lady was an agreeable surprise. He had been a little biased by Aunt Jane, he admitted to himself. She was like some of the fine old ladies he had met abroad, who carried their age with a serene unconsciousness.
Mrs. Dayton was coming up the path, and gave them a little nod.
"Perhaps she would like your service a while, Helen," exclaimed Mrs. Van Dorn. "I should enjoy having a little talk with your friend."
Helen rose reluctantly. She would much rather have stayed. But in five minutes she was in full flow of an interested confidence with Mrs.
Dayton, and then they sat down on the north corner of the kitchen porch, and peeled peaches for the luncheon, as it was getting late.
Mr. Warfield meant to suggest several things to Mrs. Van Dorn that could tend to Helen"s benefit presently. She resolved to learn what he thought of the child"s capabilities for advancement. In a certain way, though, they both parried skillfully, each gained a point, yet it was not the point Mr. Warfield set out to make.
CHAPTER VII
SUCCESSFUL
They chatted a little after the meal was over, and Mr. Warfield asked Helen to get her papers, and let him see how she had made out with them.
Mrs. Van Dorn gave him a pleasant good-by, and said she must go and take her daily nap, the best preventive of old age that she knew. Her smile was over the fact that she held the winning card, and now she had resolved to play for the girl. It was more entertaining.
Helen brought her papers, very nicely written, and Mr. Warfield admitted well prepared. There were but few corrections to be made. Then he smiled, and said in a tone he meant to be comforting, if the matter was not:
"Perhaps you know, Helen, you cannot use these. Some were last year"s questions, some I guessed at, though I believe I hit two rightly. You sit down in the room, at the table, and a list is given you, and you write out your answers from your own interior knowledge, with no helps from books or friends."
Helen glanced up in dismay, her rosy cheek paled, her lip had a suspicious quiver.
"But I thought----" and she looked at the discarded papers, over which she had taken so much pains.
"My dear child, I wanted you to put in practice what you had already learned. Vacation is a trying time to the memory, unless one resolves the subject in one"s mind. It would have been better for you to come up at once for the examination, but I didn"t see how it was to be managed.
Indeed, last night I confess I did not see how the plan could be carried through, and I am surprised at your courage and energy."