"But, Uncle----"

"No more! I will listen to nothing else from you," he declared, harshly.

"I shall purchase your ticket through to-morrow, and the next day you must go. Ahem! Remember that I _will_ be obeyed."

Helen looked at him with tear-dimmed eyes for fully a minute. But he said no more and his stern countenance, as well as his unkind words and tone, repelled her. She put out her hand once, as though to speak, but he turned away, scornfully.

It was her last attempt to soften him toward her. He might then, had he not been so selfish and haughty, have made his peace with the girl and saved himself much trouble and misery in the end. But he ignored her, and Helen, crying softly, left the room and stole up to her own place in the attic.

She could not see anybody that evening, and so did not go down to dinner.

Later, to her amazement, Maggie came to her door with a tray piled high with good things--a very elaborate repast, indeed. But Helen was too heartsick to eat much, although she did not refuse the attention--which she laid to the kindness of Lawdor, the butler.

But for once she was mistaken. The tray of food did not come from Lawdor.

Nor was it the outward semblance of anybody's kindness. The tray delivered at Helen's door was the first result of a great fright!

At dinner the girls could not wait for their father to be seated before they began to tell him of the amazing thing that had been revealed to them that afternoon by Jessie Stone.

"Where's Cousin Helen, Gregson?" asked Belle, before seating herself. "See that she is called. She may not have heard the gong."

If Gregson's face could display surprise, it displayed it then.

"Of course, dear Helen has returned; hasn't she?" added Hortense.

"I'll go up myself and see if she's here," Flossie suggested.

"Ahem!" said the surprised Mr. Starkweather.

"I listened sharply for her, but I did not hear her pa.s.s my door," said Hortense.

"I must ask her to come back to that spare room on the lower floor,"

sighed Belle. "She is too far away from the rest of the family."

"Girls!" gasped Mr. Starkweather, at length finding speech.

"Oh, you needn't explode, Pa!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Belle. "We are aware of something about Helen that changes the complexion of affairs entirely."

"What does this mean?" demanded Mr. Starkweather, blankly. "Something about Helen?"

"Yes, indeed, Pa," said Flossie, spiritedly. "Who do you suppose owns that Sunset Ranch she talks about?"

"And who do you suppose is worth a quarter of a million dollars--more than _you_ are worth, Pa, I declare?" cried Hortense.

"Girls!" exclaimed Belle. "That is very low. If we have made a mistake regarding Cousin Helen, of course it can be adjusted. But we need not be vulgar enough to say _why_ we change toward her."

Mr. Starkweather thumped upon the table with the handle of his knife.

"Girls!" he commanded. "I will have this explained. What do you mean?"

Out it came then--in a torrent. Three girls can do a great deal of talking in a few minutes--especially if they all talk at once.

But Mr. Starkweather got the gist of it. He understood what it all meant, and he realized what it meant to _him_, as well, better than his daughters could.

Prince Morrell, whom he had always considered a bit of a fool, and therefore had not even inquired about after he left for the West, had died a rich man. He had left this only daughter, who was an heiress to great wealth. And he, Willets Starkweather, had allowed the chance of a lifetime to slip through his fingers!

If he had only made inquiries about the girl and her circ.u.mstances! He might have done that when he learned that Mr. Morrell was dead. When Helen had told him her father wished her to be in the care of her mother's relatives, Mr. Starkweather could have then taken warning and learned the girl's true circ.u.mstances. He had not even accepted her confidences. Why, he might have been made the guardian of the girl, and handled all her fortune!

These thoughts and a thousand others raced through the scheming brain of the man. Could he correct his fault at this late date? If he had only known of this that his daughters had learned from Jess Stone, before he had taken Helen to task as he had that very evening!

Fenwick Grimes had telephoned to him at his office. Something Mr. Grimes had said--and he had not seen Mr. Grimes nor talked personally with him for years--had put Mr. Starkweather into a great fright. He had decided that the only safe place for Helen Morrell was back in the West--he supposed with the poor and ignorant people on the ranch where her father had worked.

Where Prince Morrell had _worked_! Why, if Morrell had owned Sunset Ranch, Helen was one of the wealthiest heiresses in the whole Western country.

Mr. Starkweather had asked a few questions about Sunset Ranch of men who knew. But, as the owner had never given himself any publicity, the name of Morrell was never connected with it.

While the three girls chattered over the details of the story Mr.

Starkweather merely played with his food, and sat staring into a corner of the room. He was trying to scheme his way out of the difficulty--the dangerous difficulty, indeed--in which he found himself.

So, his first move was characteristic. He sent the tray upstairs to Helen.

But none of the family saw Helen again that night.

However, there was another caller. This was May Van Ramsden. She did not ask for Helen, however, but for Mr. Starkweather himself, and that gentleman came graciously into the room where May was sitting with the three much excited sisters.

Belle and Hortense and Flossie were bubbling over with the desire to ask Miss Van Ramsden if _she_ knew that Helen was a rich girl and not a poor one. But there was no opportunity. The caller broached the reason for her visit at once, when she saw Mr. Starkweather.

"We are going to ask a great favor of you, sir," she said, shaking hands.

"And it does seem like a very great impudence on our part. But please remember that, as children, we were all very much attached to her. You see," pursued Miss Van Ramsden, "there are the De Vorne girls, and Jo and Nat Paisley, and Adeline Schenk, and some of the Blutcher boys and girls--although the younger ones were born in Europe--and Sue Livingstone, and Crayton Ballou. Oh! there really is a score or more."

"Ahem!" said Mr. Starkweather, not only solemnly, but reverently. These were names he worshipped. He could have refused such young people nothing--nothing!--and would have told Miss Van Ramsden so had what she said next not stricken him dumb for the time.

"You see, some of us have called on Nurse Boyle, and found her so bright and so delighted with our coming, that we want to give her a little tea-party to-morrow afternoon. It would be so delightful to have her greet the girls and boys who used to be such friends of hers in the time of Mr.

Cornelius, right up there in those cunning rooms of hers.

"We always used to see her in the nursery suite, and there are the same furniture, and hangings, and pictures, and all. And Nurse Boyle herself is just the same--only a bit older--Ah! girls!" she added, turning suddenly to the three sisters, "you don't know what it means to have been cared for, and rocked, and sung to, when you were ill, perhaps, by Mary Boyle!

You missed a great deal in not having a Mary Boyle in your family."

"_Mary Boyle!_" gasped Mr. Starkweather.

"Yes. Can we all come to see her to-morrow afternoon? I am sure if you tell Mrs. Olstrom, your housekeeper will attend to all the arrangements.

Helen knows about it, and she'll help pour the tea. Mary thinks there is n.o.body quite like Helen."

These shocks were coming too fast for Mr. Starkweather. Had anything further occurred that evening to torment him it is doubtful if he would have got through it as gracefully as he did through this call. May Van Ramsden went away a.s.sured that no obstacle would be placed in the way of Mary Boyle's party in the attic. But neither Mr. Starkweather, nor his three daughters, could really look straight into each other's faces for the remainder of that evening. And they were all four remarkably silent, despite the exciting things that had so recently occurred to disturb them.

In the morning Helen got an invitation from Jess Stone to dinner that evening. She said "come just as you are"; but she did not tell Helen that she had innocently betrayed her true condition to the Starkweathers. Helen wrote a long reply and sent it by special messenger through old Lawdor, the butler. Then she prepared for the tea in Mary Boyle's rooms.

At breakfast time Helen met the family for the first time since the explosion. Self-consciousness troubled the countenances and likewise the manner of Mr. Starkweather and his three daughters.

"Ahem! A very fine morning, Helen. Have you been out for your usual ramble, my dear?"

"How-do, Helen? Hope you're feeling quite fit."