Helen looked eagerly out of the carriage-window for the first view of Clarendon Park. It satisfied—it surpassed her expectations. It was a fine, aristocratic place:—ancestral trees, and a vast expanse of park; herds of deer, yellow and dark, or spotted, their heads appearing in the distance just above the fern, or grazing near, startled as the carriage passed. Through the long approach, she caught various views of the house, partly gothic, partly of modern architecture; it seemed of great extent and magnificence.

All delightful so far; but now for her own reception. Her breath grew quick and quicker as she came near and nearer to the house. Some one was standing on the steps. Was it General Clarendon? No; only a servant. The carriage stopped, more servants appeared, and as Helen got out, a very sublime-looking personage informed her, that “Lady Cecilia and the General were out riding—only in the park—would be in immediately.”

And as she crossed the great hall, the same sublime person informed her that there would be still an hour before dinner-time, and inquired whether she would be pleased to be shown to her own apartment, or to the library? Helen felt chilled and disappointed, because this was not exactly the way she had expected things would be upon her arrival. She had pictured to herself Cecilia running to meet her in the hall.

Without answering the groom of the chambers, she asked, “Is Lady Davenant out too?”

“No; her ladyship is in the library.”

“To the library then.”

And through the antechamber she passed rapidly, impatient of a momentary stop of her conductor to open the folding-doors, while a man, with a letter-box in hand, equally impatient, begged that Lady Davenant might be told, “The General’s express was waiting.”

Lady Davenant was sealing letters in great haste for this express, but when the door opened, and she saw Helen, she threw wax and letter from her, and pushing aside the sofa-table, came forward to receive her with open arms.

All was in an instant happy in Helen’s heart; but there was the man of the letter-box; he must be attended to. “Beg your pardon, Helen, my dear—one moment. Letters of consequence—must not be delayed.”

By the time the letters were finished, before they were gone, Lady Cecilia came in. The same as ever, with affectionate delight in her eyes—her beautiful eyes. The same, yes, the same Cecilia as ever; yet different: less of a girl, less lively, but more happy. The moment she had embraced her, Lady Cecilia turned quick to present General Clarendon, thinking he had followed, but he had stopped in the hall.

“Send off the letters,” were the first words of his which Helen heard. The tone commanding, the voice remarkably gentlemanlike. An instant afterwards he came in. A fine figure, a handsome man; in the prime of life; with a high-born, high-bred military air. English decidedly—proudly English. Something of the old school—composed self-possession, with voluntary deference to others—rather distant. Helen felt that his manner of welcoming her to Clarendon Park was perfectly polite, yet she would have liked it better had it been less polite—more cordial. Lady Cecilia, whose eyes were anxiously upon her, drew her arm within hers, and hurried her out of the room. She stopped at the foot of the stairs, gathered up the folds of her riding-dress, and turning suddenly to Helen, said,—

“Helen, my dear, you must not think that”——

“Think what?” said Helen.

“Think that—for which you are now blushing. Oh, you know what I mean! Helen, your thoughts are just as legible in your face, as they always were to me. His manner is reserved—cold, may be—but not his heart. Understand this, pray—once for all. Do you? will you, dearest Helen?”

“I do, I will,” cried Helen; and every minute she felt that she better understood and was more perfectly pleased with her friend. Lady Cecilia showed her through the apartment destined for her, which she had taken the greatest pleasure in arranging; everything there was not only most comfortable, but particularly to her taste; and some little delicate proofs of affection, recollections of childhood, were there;—keepsakes, early drawings, nonsensical things, not worth preserving, but still preserved.

“Look how near we are together,” said Cecilia, opening a door into her own dressing-room. “You may shut this up whenever you please, but I hope you will never please to do so. You see how I leave you your own free will, as friends usually do, with a proviso, a hope at least, that you are never to use it on any account—like the child’s half guinea pocket-money, never to be changed.” Her playful tone relieved, as she intended it should, Helen’s too keen emotion; and this too was felt with the quickness with which every touch of kindness ever was felt by her. Helen pressed her friend’s hand, and smiled without speaking.

They were to be some time alone before the commencement of bridal visits, and an expected succession of troops of friends. This was a time of peculiar enjoyment to Helen: she had leisure to grow happy in the feeling of reviving hopes from old associations.

She did not forget her promise to write to Mrs. Collingwood; nor afterwards (to her credit be it here marked)—even when the house was full of company, and when, by amusement or by feeling, she was most pressed for time—did she ever omit to write to those excellent friends. Those who best know the difficulty will best appreciate this proof of the reality of her gratitude.

As Lady Cecilia was a great deal with her husband riding or walking, Helen had opportunities of being much alone with Lady Davenant, who now gave her a privilege that she had enjoyed in former times at Cecilhurst, that of entering her apartment in the morning at all hours without fear of being considered an intruder.

The first morning, however, on seeing her ladyship immersed in papers with a brow of care, deeply intent, Helen paused on the threshold, “I am afraid I interrupt—I am afraid I disturb you.”

“Come in, Helen, come in,” cried Lady Davenant, looking up, and the face of care was cleared, and there was a radiance of pleasure—“Interrupt—yes: disturb—no. Often in your little life, Helen, you have interrupted—never disturbed me. From the time you were a child till this moment, never did I see you come into my room without pleasure.”

Then sweeping away heaps of papers, she made room for Helen on the sofa beside her.

“Now tell me how things are with you—somewhat I have heard reported of my friend the dean’s affairs—tell me all.”

Helen told all as briefly as possible; she hurried on through her uncle’s affairs with a tremulous voice, and before she could come to a conclusion Lady Davenant exclaimed,

“I foresaw it long since: with all my friend’s virtues, all his talents—but we will not go back upon the painful past. You, my dear Helen, have done just what I should have expected from you,—right;—right, too, the condition Mr. Collingwood has made—very right. And now to the next point:—where are you to live, Helen? or rather with whom?”

Helen was not quite sure yet, she said she had not quite determined.

“Am I to understand that your doubt lies between the Collingwoods and my daughter?”

“Yes; Cecilia most kindly invited me, but I do not know General Clarendon yet, and he does not know me yet. Cecilia might wish most sincerely that I should live with her, and I am convinced she does; but her husband must be considered.”

“True,” said Lady Davenant—“true; a husband is certainly a thing to be cared for—in Scottish phrase, and General Clarendon is no doubt a person to be considered,—but it seems that I am not a person to be considered in your arrangements.”

Even the altered, dry, and almost acrid tone in which Lady Davenant spoke, and the expression of disappointment in her countenance—were, as marks of strong affection, deeply gratifying to Helen. Lady Davenant went on.

“Was not Cecilhurst always a home to you, Helen Stanley?”

“Yes, yes,—always a most happy home!”

“Then why is not Cecilhurst to be your home?”

“My dear Lady Davenant! how kind!—how very, very kind of you to wish it—but I never thought of——”

“And why did you not think of it, Helen?’”

“I mean—I thought you were going to Russia.”

“And have you settled, my dear Helen,” said Lady Davenant, smiling, “have you settled that I am never to come back from Russia? Do not you know that you are—that you ever were—you ever will be to me a daughter?” and drawing Helen fondly towards her, she added, “as my own very dear—I must not say dearest child,—must not, because as I well remember once—little creature as you were then—-you whispered to me, ‘Never call me dearest,’—generous-hearted child!” And tears started into her eyes as she spoke; but at that moment came a knock at the door. “A packet from Lord Davenant, by Mr. Mapletofft, my lady.” Helen rose to leave the room, but Lady Davenant laid a detaining hand upon her, saying, “You will not be in my way in the least;” and she opened her packet, adding, that while she read, Helen might amuse herself “with arranging the books on that table, or in looking over the letters in that portfolio.”

Helen had hitherto seen Lady Davenant only with the eyes of very early youth; but now, after an absence of two years—a great space in her existence, it seemed as if she looked upon her with new eyes, and every hour made fresh discoveries in her character. Contrary to what too often happens when we again see and judge of those whom we have early known, Lady Davenant’s character and abilities, instead of sinking and diminishing, appeared to rise and enlarge, to expand and be ennobled to Helen’s view. Strong lights and shades there were, but these only excited and fixed her attention. Even her defects—those inequalities of temper of which she had already had some example, were interesting as evidences of the power and warmth of her affections.

The books on the table were those which Lady Davenant had had in her travelling carriage. They gave Helen an idea of the range and variety of the reader’s mind. Some of them were presentation copies, as they are called, from several of the first authors of our own, and foreign countries; some with dedications to Lady Davenant; others with inscriptions expressing respect or propitiating favour, or anxious for judgment.

The portfolio contained letters whose very signatures would have driven the first of modern autograph collectors distracted with joy—whose meanest scrap would make a scrap-book the envy of the world.

But among the letters in this portfolio, there were none of those nauseous notes of compliment, none of those epistles adulatory, degrading to those who write, and equally degrading to those to whom they are written: letters which are, however cleverly turned, inexpressibly wearisome to all but the parties concerned.

After opening and looking at the signature of several of these letters, Helen sat in a delightful embarras de richesse. To read them all—all at once, was impossible; with which to begin, she could not determine. One after another was laid aside as too good to be read first, and after glancing at the contents of each, she began to deal them round alphabetically till she was struck by a passage in one of them—she looked to the signature, it was unknown to fame—she read the whole, it was striking and interesting. There were several letters in the same hand, and Helen was surprised to find them arranged according to their dates, in Lady Davenant’s own writing—preserved with those of persons of illustrious reputation! These she read on without further hesitation. There was no sort of affectation in them—quite easy and natural, “real feeling, and genius,” certainly genius, she thought!—and there seemed something romantic and uncommon in the character of the writer. They were signed Granville Beauclerc!

Who could he be, this Granville Beauclerc? She read on till Lady Davenant, having finished her packet, rang a silver handbell, as was her custom, to summon her page. At the first tingle of the bell Helen started, and Lady Davenant asked, “Whose letter, my dear, has so completely abstracted you?”

Carlos, the page, came in at this instant, and after a quick glance at the handwriting of the letters, Lady Davenant gave her orders in Portuguese to Carlos, and then returning to Helen, took no further notice of the letters, but went on just where she had left off. “Helen, I remember when you were about nine years old, timid as you usually were, your coming forward, bold as a little lion, to attack me in Cecilia’s defence; I forget the particulars, but I recollect that you said I was unjust, and that I did not know Cecilia, and there you were right; so, to reward you, you shall see that now I do her perfect justice, and that I am as fond of her as your heart can wish. I really never did know Cecilia till I saw her heartily in love; I had imagined her incapable of real love; I thought the desire of pleasing universally had been her ruling passion—the ruling passion that, of a little mind and a cold heart; but I did her wrong. In another more material point, too, I was mistaken.”

Lady Davenant paused and looked earnestly at Helen, whose eyes said, “I am glad,” and yet she was not quite certain she knew to what she alluded.

“Cecilia righted herself, and won my good opinion, by the openness with which she treated me from the very commencement of her attachment to General Clarendon.” Lady Davenant again paused to reflect, and played for some moments with the tablets in her hand.

“Some one says that we are apt to flatter ourselves that we leave our faults when our faults leave us, from change of situation, age, and so forth; and perhaps it does not signify much which it is, if the faults are fairly gone, and if there be no danger of their returning: all our former misunderstandings arose on Cecilia’s part from cowardice of character; on mine from—no matter what—no matter which of us was most wrong.”

“True, true,” cried Helen eagerly; and anxious to prevent recurrence to painful recollections, she went on to ask rapidly several questions about Cecilia’s marriage.

Lady Davenant smiled, and promised that she should have the whole history of the marriage in true gossip detail.

“When I wrote to you, I gave you some general ideas on the subject, but there are little things which could not well be written, even to so safe a young friend as you are, for what is written remains, and often for those by whom it was never intended to be seen; the dessoux des cartes can seldom be either safely or satisfactorily shown on paper, so give me my embroidery-frame, I never can tell well without having something to do with my hands.”

And as Helen set the embroidery-frame, Lady Davenant searched for some skeins of silk and silk winders.

“Take these, my dear, and wind this silk for me, for I must have my hearer comfortably established, not like the agonised listener in the ‘World’ leaning against a table, with the corner running into him all the time.”