Time is not so all erasing as we think. Old Katharine Vanhorn, at seventy, heard from the young lips of her grandniece the name, which had not been mentioned in her presence for nearly half a century—the name that still had power to rouse in her heart the old bitter feeling. For John Pronando had turned from her to an uneducated common girl—a market gardener’s daughter.  The proud Kate Vanhorn resented the defection instantly; she broke the bond of her betrothal, and sailed for England before Pronando realized that she was offended. This idyll of the gardener’s daughter was but one of his passing amusements; and so he wrote to his black-browed goddess. But she replied that if he sought amusement of that kind during the short period of betrothal, he would seek it doubly after marriage, and then it would not be so easy to sail for Europe. She considered that she had had an escape. Pronando, handsome, light-hearted, and careless, gave up his offended Juno without much heartache, and the episode of Phyllis being by this time finished, he strayed back to his Philadelphia home, to embroil himself as usual with his family, and, later, to follow out the course ordained for him by fate. Kate Vanhorn had other suitors; but the old wound never healed.

“Come and spend the summer with me,” said Helen. “I trust I am as agreeable as the dragon.”

“No; I must stay here. Even as it is, she is doing a great deal for me; I have no real claim upon her,” replied Anne, trying not to give way to the loneliness that oppressed her.

“Only that of being her nearest living relative, and natural heir.”

“I have not considered the question of inheritance,” replied the island girl, proudly.

“I know you have not; yet it is there. Old ladies, however, instead of natural heirs, are apt to prefer unnatural ones—cold-blooded Societies, Organizations, and the endless Heathen. But I am in earnest about the summer, Crystal: spend it with me.”

“You are always generous to me,” said Anne, gratefully.

“No; I never was generous in my life. I do not know how to be generous. But this is

the way it is: I am rich; I want a companion; and I like you. Your voice supports mine perfectly, and is not in the least too loud—a thing I detest.  Besides, we look well together. You are an excellent background for me; you make me look poetic; whereas most women make me look like a caricature of myself—of what I really am. As though a straw-bug should go out walking with a very attenuated grasshopper.  Now if the straw-bug went out always with a plump young toad or wood-turtle, people might be found to admire even his hair-like fineness of limb and yellow transparency, by force, you know, of contrast.”

Anne laughed; but there was also a slight change of expression in her face.

“I can read you, Crystal,” said Helen, laughing in her turn. “Old Katharine has already told you all those things—sweet old lady! She understands me so well! Come; call it selfishness or generosity, as you please; but accept.”

“It is generosity, Helen; which, however, I must decline.”

“It must be very inconvenient to be so conscientious,” said Mrs. Lorrington. “But mind, I do not give it up. What! Lose so good a listener as you are? To whom, then, can I confide the latest particulars respecting the Poet, the Bishop, the Knight-errant, and the Haunted Man?”

“I like the Bishop,” said Anne, smiling back at her friend. She had acquired the idea, without words, that Helen liked him also.

The story of Miss Vanhorn’s change was, of course, related to Tante: Anne had great confidence both in the old Frenchwoman’s kindness of heart and excellent judgment.

Tante listened, asked a question or two, and then said:  “Yes, yes, I see. For the present, nothing more can be done. She will allow you to finish your year here, and as the time is of value to you, you shall continue your studies through the vacation. But not at my New Jersey farm, as she supposes; at a better place than that. You shall go to Pitre.”

“A place, Tante?”

“No; a friend of mine, and a woman.”

Mademoiselle Jeanne-Armande Pitre was not so old as Tante (Tante had friends of all ages); she was about fifty, but conveyed the impression of never having been young. “She is an excellent teacher,” continued the other Frenchwoman,  “and so closely avaricious that she will be glad to take you even for the small sum you will pay. She is employed in a Western seminary somewhere, but always returns to this little house of hers for the summer vacation. Your opportunity for study with her will be excellent; she has a rage for study. Write and tell your grandaunt, ma fille, what I have decided.”