“You shall ride with me, Miss Lennox, and I will show you something worth your seeing,” she frankly answered:
“Your mother is not in fault, Mr. Ray. She asked me where I wished to go, and I mentioned these places; so please attribute it wholly to my country breeding, and not to your mother’s lack of taste.”
There was something in the frank speech which won Mrs. Banker’s heart, while she felt an increased respect for the young girl, who, she saw, was keenly sensitive, even with all her strength of character.
“You were right to commence as you have,” she said, “for now you have a still greater treat in store, and Mark shall drive you to the Park some day. I know you will like that.”
Helen could like anything with that friendly voice to reassure her, and leaning back she was thinking how pleasant it was to be in New York, how different from what she had expected, when a bow from Mark made her look up in time to see that they were meeting a carriage, in which sat Wilford, with two gayly dressed ladies, both of whom gave her a supercilious stare as they passed by, while the younger of the two half turned her head, as if for a more prolonged gaze.
“Mrs. Grandon and Juno Cameron,” Mrs. Banker said, making some further remark to her son, while Helen felt that the brightness of the day had changed, for she could not be unconscious of the look with which she had been regarded by these two fashionable ladies, and again her furs came up before her, bringing a felling of which she was ashamed, especially as she had fancied herself above all weakness of the kind.
That night at the dinner, from which Mrs. Cameron was absent, Wilford was unusually gracious, asking “if she had enjoyed her ride, and if she did not find Mrs. Banker a very pleasant acquaintance.”
Wilford felt a little uncomfortable at having suffered a stranger to do for Katy’s sister what should have been done by himself. Katy had asked him to drive with Helen, but he had found it very convenient to forget it, and take a seat instead with Juno and Mrs. Grandon, the latter of whom complimented “Miss Lennox’s fine intellectual face,” after they had passed, and complimented it the more as she saw how it vexed Juno, who could see nothing “in those bold eyes and that masculine forehead,” just because their vis-à-vis chanced to be Mark Ray. Juno was not pleased with Helen’s first appearance in the street, but nevertheless she called upon her next day, with Sybil Grandon and her sister Bell. To this she was urged by Sybil, who, having a somewhat larger experience of human nature, foresaw that Helen would be popular just because Mrs. Banker had taken her up, and who, besides, had conceived a capricious fancy to patronize Miss Lennox. But in this she was foiled, for Helen was not to be patronized, and she received her visitors with that calm, assured manner so much a part of herself.
“Diamond cut diamond,” Bell thought, as she saw how frigidly polite both Juno and Helen were, each recognizing in the other something antagonistic, which could not harmonize.
Had Juno never cared for Dr. Grant, or suspected Helen of standing between herself and him, and had Mark Ray never stopped at Silverton, or been seen on Broadway with her, she might have judged her differently, for there was something attractive in Helen’s face and appearance as she sat talking to her guests, with as much quiet dignity as if she had never mended Uncle Ephraim’s socks or made a pound of butter among the huckleberry hills. Bell was delighted, detecting at once traces of the rare mind which Helen Lennox possessed, and wondering to find it so.