'There were two words to that bargain!' said Percy. 'He must be content to wait for Helen.'

'So instead of my sister, you dispose of my daughter,' said Arthur.

'Poor little Helen!' said Violet. 'Imagine the age he will be when she is eighteen!'

'He will never grow old!' said Percy. 'He has the poet's gift of perpetual youth, the spring of life and fancy that keeps men young. He has not grown a day older since this time five years. I found he had taken a great deal of trouble about me, recommended me strenuously, brought forward my papers on foreign policy, and been at much pains to confute that report that was afloat against me. He treated my appointment as a personal favour; and he is a man of weight now. You were right, Theodora; it would have been abominable to sulk in our corner, because we had behaved ill ourselves, and to meet such noble-spirited kindness as an offence.'

'I am very glad that you feel it so,' returned Theodora.

'Now that I have seen him I do so completely. And another thing I have to thank you for, Violet, that you saved me from laying it on any thicker in that criticism of his poetry.'

'I told you how he said that you had done him a great deal of good.'

'A signal instance--almost a single instance of candour. But there is a nobility of mind in him above small resentments and jealousies. Ay! there never will be anybody fit for him but Helen!'