The peculiar contrast flashed over Helen. What made the complacency--content?
"Did you have a pleasant call?" When Mrs. Van Dorn didn't feel cross her voice had a certain sweetness. Helen thought the word mellifluous expressed it. She was fond of pretty adjectives.
"Aunt Jane was very busy and they all set in for me to stay. The children do miss me."
"And did you want to stay?" with the same sweetness.
"No," said Helen, honestly, while the color deepened in her cheeks. "Oh, dear! I think I am getting spoiled, citified, and North Hope isn't a city either," with a half rueful little laugh, yet not raising her eyes.
"She isn't of their kind," thought Mrs. Van Dorn. "And her courage, her truthfulness, are quite unusual. She is very trusty, there is the making of something fine in her."
"You are not fond of country life, farm life," correcting herself.
"I am quite sure I shouldn't be, and yet I like the country so much, the space, the waving trees, the great stretches of sky. I should stifle in a place where there were rows and rows of houses and paved streets everywhere."
"But not where there were palaces, and villas, and parks, and gardens, and beautiful equipages, and elegantly dressed women."
Helen shook her head, "I shall never have the chance to like or dislike that. Oh, yes," brightening, "I can read it in a book and imagine myself in the midst of it."
"I thought you ware planning to teach school, and save up money, and take journeys."
"Oh, I do, and all manner of extravagant things. But I am afraid they are air castles." For somehow the reality of her life had come over her again. She belonged to Hope Center, not to North Hope. And maybe she never could get over there.
Mrs. Van Dorn thought of herself at Helen's age. Where would her ambitions lead her. _She_ had had no ambitions to rise in life. How gladly she would have married her first common-place lover, and accepted a life of drudgery. What queer things girls were! and how strange that when she was tired and worn out, and almost desperate, the best of fortune should come to her. It seldom happened, she knew. The old life was a vague dream, she had only lived since her marriage. In a way she coveted this girl's freshness and energy. To have someone to really and truly love her--was there any such thing in life, to old age?