You may find the situation very dismal and unsympathetic.' 'It's pretty country, I think,' said Helen, 'and I'm sure the drainage and the beds are all right.

But Althea must certainly see it first.' It was settled, however, quite settled in Althea's mind that she was to take Merriston House.

She bade Helen farewell three days later, and they had arranged that they were, within a fortnight, to meet in London, and go together to look at it.
And Althea wrote to Franklin Winslow Kane, and informed him of her new plans, and that he must be her guest at Merriston House for as long as his own plans allowed him.

Her mood in regard to Franklin had greatly altered since that evening of gloom a fortnight ago.

Franklin, then, had seemed the only fact worth looking at; but now she seemed embarked on a voyage of discovery, where bright new planets swam above the horizon with every forward rock of her boat.