You look after her, Althea; that'll be the best thing that can happen to her.' With all his acuteness, how guileless he was, the dear! She saw herself 'looking after' Helen! 'You might have a great deal of influence on her,' Franklin added.
Althea struggled for a moment with her pride.

She liked Franklin to have this high opinion of her ministering powers, and yet she liked even more to have the comfort of confiding in him; and she was willing to add to Helen's impressiveness at the expense of her own.

'I've no influence with her,' she said.

'I never shall have.

I don't believe that any one could influence Helen.' Franklin looked fixedly at her for some time as though probing what there must be of pain for her in this avowal.