The Professor of Theology colored a little.
“The ladies of my family are quite free to visit any of the places of worship around us,” he observed with some dignity. “They are not bound by the same species of ecclesiastical etiquette”—
“We must be going, Mother,” said Helen abruptly. Her cheeks were blazing; her eyes met Bayard’s with a ray of indignant sympathy which went to his head like wine. He felt the light, quick motion of her breath; the folds of her summer dress—he could not have told what she wore—fell over the carpet lounge; the hem of the dress touched his boot, and just covered the patch on it from sight. He had but glanced at her before. He looked at her now; her heightened color became her richly; her hand—she wore a driving-glove—lay upon the cretonne sofa pillow; she had picked a single flower as she came up Mrs. Granite’s garden walk. Bayard was amused to see that she had instinctively taken a deep purple pansy with a heart of gold.
A little embarrassed, Helen held out the pansy.
“I like them,” she said. “They make faces at me.”
“This one is a royal creature,” said Bayard. “It has the face of a Queen.”
“Mr. Bayard,” asked Mrs. Carruth, with the air of starting a subject of depth and force, “do you find any time to analyze flowers?”
“So far—hardly,” replied Bayard, looking Helen straight in the face.
“I used to study botany when I was a young lady—in New York,” observed Mrs. Carruth placidly; “it seems to me a very wholesome and refining”—
“Papa!” cried Helen, “Pepper is eating a tomato can—No, it’s a piece of—It is an apron—a gingham apron! The menu of that horse, Mr. Bayard, surpasses anything”—