Family Pride

"It's Will and the Camerons," Mark thought, blaming Helen less than he would have done, if he, too, had not known something of the Cameron pride.

It was a novel position in which Mark found himself that night; an inmate of a humble farmhouse, where he could almost touch the ceiling with his hand, and where his surroundings were so different from what he had been accustomed to; but, unlike Wilford Cameron, he did not wish himself away, nor feel indignant at Aunt Betsy's odd, old-fashioned ways, or Uncle Ephraim's grammar. He noticed Aunt Betsy's oddities, it is true, and noticed Uncle Ephraim's grammar, too; but the sight of Helen sitting there, with so much dignity and self-respect, made him look beyond all else, straight into her open face and clear brown eyes, where there was nothing obnoxious or distasteful. Her grammar was correct, her manner, saving a little stiffness, ladylike and refined; and Mark rather enjoyed his situation as self-invited guest, making himself so agreeable that Uncle Ephraim forgot his hour of retiring, nor discovered his mistake until, with a loud yawn, Aunt Betsy told him that it was half-past nine, and she was "desput sleepy."

Owing to Helen's influence there had been a change of the olden customs, and instead of the long chapter, through which Uncle Ephraim used to plod so wearily, there was now read the Evening Psalms, Aunt Betsy herself joining in the reading, which she mentally classed with the "quirks," but confessed to herself that it "was most as good as the Bible."

As there were only Prayer Books enough for the family, Helen, in distributing them, purposely passed Mark by, thinking he might not care to join them. But he did, and when the verse came around to Helen he quickly drew his chair near to hers, and taking one side of her book, performed his part, while Helen's face grew red as the blossoms in her hair, and her hand so near to Mark's trembled visibly.

"A right nice chap, and not an atom stuck up," was Aunt Betsy's mental comment, and then, as he often will do, Satan followed the saintly woman even to her knees, making her wonder if "Mr. Ray hadn't some notion after Helen." She hoped not, for she meant that Morris should have Helen, "though if 'twas to be it was, and she should not go agin' it;" and while Aunt Betsy thus settled the case, Uncle Ephraim's prayer ended, and the conscience-smitten woman arose from her knees with the conviction that "the evil one had got the better of her once," mentally asking pardon for her wandering thoughts, and promising to do better.