Helen was seized with profound and anxious sadness. Leonard had been three
or four times to see her, and each time she saw a change in him that
excited all her fears. He seemed, it is true, more shrewd, more
worldly-wise, more fitted, it might be, for coarse, daily life; but, on the
other hand, the freshness and glory of his youth were waning slowly. His
aspirings drooped earthward. He had not mastered the Practical, and moulded
its uses with the strong hand of the Spiritual Architect, of the Ideal
Builder: the Practical was overpowering himself. She grew pale when he
talked of Burley, and shuddered, poor little Helen! when she found he was
daily and almost nightly in a companionship which, with her native, honest
prudence, she saw so unsuited to strengthen him in his struggles, and aid
him against temptation. She almost groaned when, pressing him as to his
pecuniary means, she found his old terror of death seemed fading away, and
the solid, healthful principles he had taken from his village were
loosening fast. Under all, it is true, there was what a wiser and older
person than Helen would have hailed as the redeeming promise. But that
something was _grief_--a sublime grief In his own sense of falling--in his
own impotence against the Fate he had provoked and coveted. The sublimity
of that grief Helen could not detect: she saw only that it _was_ grief, and
she grieved with it, letting it excuse every fault--making her more anxious
to comfort, in order that she might save. Even from the first, when Leonard
had exclaimed, "Ah, Helen, why did you ever leave me?" she had revolved the
idea of return to him; and when in the boy's last visit he told her that
Burley, persecuted by duns, was about to fly from his present lodgings, and
take his abode with Leonard in the room she had left vacant, all doubt was
over. She resolved to sacrifice the safety and shelter of the home assured
her. She resolved to come back and share Leonard's penury and struggles,
and save the old room, wherein she had prayed for him, from the tempter's
dangerous presence. Should she burden him? No; she had assisted her father
by many little female arts in needle and fancy work. She had improved
herself in these during her sojourn with Miss Starke. She could bring her
share to the common stock. Possessed with this idea, she determined to
realize it before the day on which Leonard had told her Burley was to move
his quarters. Accordingly she rose very early one morning; she wrote a
pretty and grateful note to Miss Starke, who was fast asleep, left it on
the table, and before any one was astir, stole from the house, her little
bundle on her arm. She lingered an instant at the garden-gate, with a
remorseful sentiment--a feeling that she had ill-repaid the cold and prim
protection that Miss Starke had shown her. But sisterly love carried all
before it. She closed the gate with a sigh, and went on.
She arrived at the lodging-house before Leonard was up, took possession of
her old chamber, and, presenting herself to Leonard as he was about to go
forth, said, (story-teller that she was,)--"I am sent away, brother, and I
have to come to you to take care of me. Do not let us part again. But you
must be very cheerful and very happy, or I shall think that I am sadly in
your way."
Leonard at first did look cheerful, and even happy; but then he thought of
Burley, and then of his own means of supporting her, and was embarrassed,
and began questioning Helen as to the possibility of a reconciliation with
Miss Starke. And Helen said gravely, "Impossible--do not ask it, and do not
go near her."
Then Leonard thought she had been humbled and insulted, and remembered that
she was a gentleman's child, and felt for her wounded pride--he was so
proud himself. Yet still he was embarrassed.
"Shall I keep the purse again, Leonard?" said Helen coaxingly.
"Alas!" replied Leonard, "the purse is empty."
"That is very naughty in the purse," said Helen, "since you put so much
into it."
"I!"
"Did you not say you made, at least, a guinea a-week?"
"Yes; but Burley takes the money; and then, poor fellow! as I owe all to
him, I have not the heart to prevent his spending it as he likes."
"Please, I wish you could settle the month's rent," said the landlady,
suddenly showing herself. She said it civilly, but with firmness.
Leonard colored. "It shall be paid to-day."
Then he pressed his hat on his head, and putting Helen gently aside, went
forth.
"Speak to _me_ in future, kind Mrs. Smedley," said Helen, with the air of a
housewife. "_He_ is always in study, and must not be disturbed."
The landlady--a good woman, though she liked her rent--smiled benignly. She
was fond of Helen, whom she had known of old.
"I am so glad you are come back; and perhaps now the young man will not
keep such late hours. I meant to give him warning, but----"
"But he will be a great man one of these days, and you must bear with him
now." And Helen kissed Mrs. Smedley, and sent her away half inclined to
cry.
Then Helen busied herself in the rooms. She found her father's box, which
had been duly forwarded. She re-examined its contents, and wept as she
touched each humble and pious relic. But her father's memory itself thus
seemed to give this home a sanction which the former had not; and she rose
quietly and began mechanically to put things in order, sighing as she saw
all so neglected, till she came to the rose-tree, and that alone showed
heed and care. "Dear Leonard!" she murmured, and the smile resettled on her
lips.