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There was a contemptuous disapproval in her tone which brought Gail’s head up.

“You don’t know Howard!” she flared. “He is one of the nicest young men at home. He is perfectly good and kind and dear, and I was hateful to him!” and Gail’s chin quivered.

Aunt Helen rendered first aid to the injured in the tenderest of manners. She moved over to the other side of Gail where she could surround her, and laid the brown head on her shoulder.

“I know just how you feel,” she soothingly said. “You’ve had to refuse to marry a good friend, and you are reproaching yourself because you were compelled to hurt him. Of course you are unfair to yourself, and you feel perfectly miserable, and you will for a while; but the main point is that you refused him.”

Gail, whose quick intelligence no intonation escaped, lay comfortably on Aunt Helen’s shoulder, and a clear little laugh rippled up. She could not see the smile of satisfaction and relief with which Aunt Helen Davies received that laugh.

“My dear, I am quite well pleased with you,” went on the older woman. “If you handle all your affairs so sensibly, you have a brilliant future before you.”