Than all the sages can!”And then she laughed the merriest of merry laughs and added, “Daddy, dear, I am an impulse! And I want you to spare some time for me.”
“Yes, my love,” said Mr. Davis, smiling upon her, though groaning inwardly for his lost ideas. “You are beautiful this morning, Helen. What have you been doing?”
“I've had a glorious walk,” replied the girl, “and all kinds of wonderful adventures; I've had a dance with the morning wind, and a race of a mile or two with a brook, and I've sung duets with all the flowers—and here you are writing uninteresting things!”
“It's my sermon, Helen,” said Mr. Davis.
“I know it,” said Helen, gravely.
“But it must be done for to-morrow,” protested the other.
“Half your congregation is going to be so excited about two tallow candles that it won't know what you preach about,” answered the girl, swinging herself on the arm of the chair; “and I'm going to sing for the other half, and so they won't care either. And besides, Daddy, I've got news to tell you; you've no idea what a good girl I've been.”
“How, my love?”
“I went to see Mrs. Woodward.”
“You didn't!”
“Yes; and it was just to show you how dutiful I'm going to be. Daddy, I felt so sorry for the poor old lady; it is so beautiful to know that one is doing good and bringing happiness into other people's lives! I think I'll go and see her often, and carry her something nice if you'll let me.”
Helen said all that as gravely as a judge; but Mr. Davis was agreeing so delightedly that she feared she was carrying the joke too far. She changed the subject quickly.
“Oh, Daddy!” she cried, “I forgot to tell you—I met a genius to-day!”
“A genius?” inquired the other.
“Yes,” said Helen, “and I've been walking around with him all morning out in the woods! Did you never hear that every place like that has a genius?”
“Yes,” assented Mr. Davis, “but I don't understand your joke.”
“This was the genius of Hilltown High School,” laughed Helen.
“Oh, Arthur!”
“Yes; will you believe it, the dear boy had walked all the way from there to see me; and he waited out by the old seat at the spring!”
“But where is he now?”
“I don't know,” said Helen. “It's very queer; I left him to go see Mrs. Woodward. He didn't go with me,” she added, “I don't believe he felt inclined to charity.”
“That is not like Arthur,” said the other.
“I'm going to take him in hand, as becomes a clergyman's daughter,” said Helen demurely; “I'm going to be a model daughter, Daddy—just you wait and see! I'll visit all your parishioners' lawn-parties and five o'clock teas for you, and I'll play Handel's Largo and Siegfried's Funeral March whenever you want to write sermons. Won't you like that?”
“Perhaps,” said Mr. Davis, dubiously.
“Only I know you'll make blots when I come to the cymbals,” said Helen; and she doubled up her fists and hummed the passage, and gave so realistic an imitation of the cymbal-clashes in the great dirge that it almost upset the chair. Afterwards she laughed one of her merriest laughs and kissed her father on the forehead.
“I heard it at Baireuth,” she said, “and it was just fine! It made your flesh creep all over you. And oh, Daddy, I brought home a souvenir of Wagner's grave!”
“Did you?” asked Mr. Davis, who knew very little about Wagner.
“Yes,” said Helen, “just a pebble I picked up near it; and you ought to have seen the custom-house officer at the dock yesterday when he was going through my trunks. 'What's this, Miss?' he asked; I guess he thought it was a diamond in the rough. 'Oh, that's from Wagner's grave,' I said. And what do you think the wretch did?”
“I'm sure I don't know, my love.”
“He threw it back, saying it wasn't worth anything; I think he must have been a Brahmsite.”
“It took the longest time going through all my treasures,” Helen prattled on, after laughing at her own joke; “you know Aunt Polly let us have everything we wanted, bless her heart!”
“I'm afraid Aunt Polly must have spoiled you,” said the other.
“She has,” laughed Helen; “I really think she must mean to make me marry a rich husband, or else she'd never have left me at that great rich school; Lucy and I were the 'star-boarders' you know, and we just had everybody to spoil us. How in the world could you ever manage to spare so much money, Daddy?”
“Oh, it was not so much,” said Mr. Davis; “things are cheaper abroad.” (As a matter of fact, the grimly resolute Aunt Polly had paid two-thirds of her niece's expenses secretly, besides distributing pocket money with lavish generosity.)
“And you should see the wonderful dresses I've brought from Paris,” Helen went on. “Oh, Daddy, I tell you I shall be glorious! Aunt Polly's going to invite a lot of people at her house next week to meet me, and I'm going to wear the reddest of red, red dresses, and just shine like a lighthouse!”
“I'm afraid,” said the clergyman, surveying her with more pride than was perhaps orthodox, “I'm afraid you'll find it hard to be satisfied in this poor little home of ours.”
“Oh, that's all right,” said Helen; “I'll soon get used to it; and besides, I've got plenty of things to fix it up with—if you'll only get those dreadful theological works out of the front room! Daddy dear, you can't imagine how hard it is to bring the Valkyries and Niebelungs into a theological library.”
“I'll see what I can do, my love,” said Mr. Davis.
He was silent for a few moments, perhaps wondering vaguely whether it was well that this commanding young lady should have everything in the world she desired; Helen, who had her share of penetration, probably divined the thought, for she made haste to change the subject.
“By the way,” she laughed, “we got so interested in our chattering that we forgot all about Arthur.”
“Sure enough,” exclaimed the other. “Pray where can he have gone?”
“I don't know,” Helen said; “it's strange. But poets are such queer creatures!”
“Arthur is a very splendid creature,” said Mr. Davis. “You have no idea, Helen, how hard he has labored since you have been away. He carried off all the honors at college, and they say he has written some good poetry. I don't know much about that, but the people who know tell me so.”
“It would be gloriously romantic to know a great poet,” said Helen, “and perhaps have him write poetry
