I shall never forget my visit.
"Good-bye, Helene dear.
"VALERIE WEST." This note she left on Helene's dresser, then ran downstairs and sprang into the buck-board.
They had plenty of time to catch the train; and on the train she had plenty of leisure for reflection.

But she could not seem to think; a confused sensation of excitement invaded her mind and she sat in her velvet armed chair alternately shivering with the memory of Cardemon's villainy, and quivering under the recollection of her night at Ashuelyn.
Rita was not at home when she came into their little apartment.

The parrot greeted her, flapping his brilliant wings and shrieking from his perch; the goldfish goggled his eyes and swam 'round and 'round.

She stood still in the centre of her room looking vacantly about her.

An immense, overwhelming sense of loneliness came over her; she turned as the rush of tears blinded her and flung herself full length among the pillows of her bed.
* * * * * Her first two or three days in town were busy ones; she had her accounts to balance, her inventories to take, her mending to do, her modest summer wardrobe to acquire, letters to write and to answer, engagements to make, to fulfill, to postpone; friends to call on and to receive, duties in regard to the New Idea Home to attend to.
[Illustration: "The parrot greeted her, flapping his brilliant wings and shrieking from his perch."] Also, the morning after her arrival came a special delivery letter from Neville: "It was a mistake to go, dear, because, although you could not have known it, matters have changed most happily for us.