Family Pride

Thus importuned, Mark Ray came in, and sitting down where his boot almost touched the new brown silk, he very politely began to answer her rapid questions, putting her entirely at her ease by his pleasant, affable manner, and making her forget the littered appearance of the room as she listened to his praises of her sister, who, he said, seemed so very happy, attracting universal admiration wherever she went. No allusion whatever was made to the trunk during the time of Mark's stay, which was not long. If he took the next train to New York, he had but an hour more to spend, and feeling that Helen would rather he should spend it at Linwood he soon arose to go. Offering his hand to Helen, there passed from his eyes into hers a look which had over her a strangely quieting influence, and prepared her for a remark which otherwise might have seemed out of place.

"I have known Wilford Cameron for years; he is my best friend, and I respect him as a brother. In some things he may be peculiar, but he will make your sister a kind husband. He loves her devotedly, I know, choosing her from the throng of ladies who would gladly have taken her place. I hope you will like him for my sake as well as Katy's."

His warm hand unclasped from Helen's, and with another good-by he was gone, without seeing either Mrs. Lennox, Aunt Hannah or Aunt Betsy. This was not the time for extending his acquaintance, he knew, and he went away with Morris, feeling that the farmhouse, so far as he could judge, was not exactly what Wilford had pictured it. "But then he came for a wife, and I did not," he thought, while Helen's face came before him as it looked up to Morris, and he wondered, were he obliged to choose between the sisters, which he should prefer. During the few days passed in Boston he had become more than half in love with Katy himself, almost envying his friend the pretty little creature he had won. She was very beautiful and very fascinating in her simplicity, but there was something in Helen's face more attractive than mere beauty, and Mark said to Morris as they walked along: "Miss Lennox is not much like her sister."

"Not much, no; but Helen is a splendid girl--more strength of character, perhaps, than Katy, who is younger than her years even. She has always been petted from babyhood; it will take time or some great sorrow to show what she really is."