Family Pride; Or, Purified by Suffering

by Mary Jane Holmes

"Early country air is healthful," he said, "and as I do not often have a chance to try it I thought I would improve the present opportunity! So I have been down by the pond, and spying these lilies I persevered until I reached them, in spite of mud and mire. There is no blossom I like so well. Were I a young girl I would always wear one in my hair, just as your sister did one night at Newport, and I never saw her look better. Just let me try the effect on you;" and selecting a half-opened bud, Mark placed it among Helen's braids as if hairdressing were one of his accomplishments. "The effect is good," he continued, turning her blushing face to the glass and asking if it were not.

"Yes," Helen stammered, seeing more the saucy eyes looking over her head than the lily in her hair. "Yes, good enough, but hardly in keeping with this old dress," and vanity whispered the wish that the buff had really been worn.

"Your dress is suitable for morning, I am sure," Mark replied, turning a little more to the right the lily and noticing as he did so how very white and pretty was the neck and throat seen above the collar.

Mark liked a pretty neck, and he was glad to know that Helen had one, though why he should care was a puzzle. He could hardly have analyzed his feelings then, or told what he did think of Helen. He only knew that by her efforts to repel him she attracted him the more, she was so different from any young ladies he had known; so different from Juno, into whose hair he had never twined a water lily. It would not become her as it did Helen, he thought, as he sat opposite her at the table, admiring his handiwork, which even Aunt Betsy observed, remarking that "Helen was mightily spruced up for morning," a compliment which Helen acknowledged with a painful blush, while Mark began a disquisition upon the nature of lilies generally, which lasted until breakfast was ended.

It was arranged that Mark should ride to the cars with Uncle Ephraim when he went for Katy, and as this gave him a good two hours of leisure, he spoke of Dr. Grant, asking Helen if she did not suppose he would call around. Helen thought it possible, and then remembering how many things were to be done that morning, she excused herself from the parlor, and repairing to the platform out by the back door, where it was shady and cool, she tied on a broad check apron, and rolling her sleeves above her elbows, was just bringing the churn-dasher to bear vigorously upon the thick cream she was turning into butter, when, having finished his cigar, Mark went out into the yard, and following the winding path came suddenly upon her. Helen's first impulse was to stop, but with a strong nerving of herself she kept on while Mark, coming as near as he dared, said to her: "Why do you do that? Is there no one else?"

"No," Helen answered; "that is, we keep no servant, and my young arms are stronger than the others."

"And mine are stronger still," Mark laughingly rejoined, as he put Helen aside and plied the dasher himself, in spite of her protestations that he would certainly ruin his clothes.

"Tie that apron around me, then," he said, with the utmost nonchalance, and Helen obeyed, tying her check apron around the young man's neck, who felt her hands as they touched his hair and knew that they were brushing queer fancies into his brain, fancies which made him wonder what his mother would think of Helen, or what she would say if she knew just how he was occupied that morning, absolutely churning cream until it turned to butter, for Mark persisted until the task was done, standing by while Helen gathered up the golden lumps, and admiring her plump, round arms quite as much as he had done her neck.

She would be a belle like her sister, though of a different stamp, he thought, as he again bent down his head while she removed the apron and disclosed more than one big spot upon his broadcloth. Mark assured her that it did not matter; his coat was nearly worn out; and anyway he never should regret that he had churned once in his life, or forget it either; and then he asked if Helen would be in New York the coming winter, talking of the pleasure it would be to meet her there until Helen herself began to feel what she never before had felt, a desire to visit Katy in her own home.

"Remember if you come that I am your debtor for numerous hospitalities," he said, when he at last bade her good-by, and sprang into the covered buggy, which Uncle Ephraim had brought out in honor of Katy's arrival.