was more susceptible of polish and refinement—so the mother thought; and as she arranged and rearranged the little parlor, lingering longest by the piano, Dr. Morris' gift, she drew bright pictures of her favorite child, wondering how the plain farmhouse and its inmates would seem to her after Canandaigua and all she must have seen during her weeks of travel since the close of the summer term. And then she wondered next why Cousin Morris was so much annoyed when told that Katy had accepted an invitation to accompany Mrs. Woodhull and her party on a trip to Montreal and Lake George, taking Boston on her homeward route. Surely Katy's movements were nothing to him, unless—and the little, ambitious mother struck at random a few notes of the soft-toned piano as she thought how possible it was that the interest always manifested by the staid, quiet Morris Grant for her light-hearted Kate was more than a brotherly interest, such as he would naturally feel for the daughter of one who had been to him a second father. But Katy was so much a child when he went away to Paris that it could not be. She would sooner think of the dark-haired Helen, who was older and more like him.
"It's Helen, if anybody," she said aloud, just as a voice at the window called out: "Please, Cousin Lucy, relieve me of these flowers. I brought them over in honor of Katy's return."
Blushing guiltily, Mrs. Lennox advanced to meet a tall, dark-looking man, with a grave, pleasant face, which, when he smiled, was strangely attractive, from the sudden lighting up of the hazel eyes and the glitter of the white, even teeth disclosed so fully to view.
"Oh, thank you, Morris! Kitty will like them, I am sure," Mrs. Lennox said, taking from his hand a bouquet of the choice flowers which grew only in the hothouse at Linwood. "Come in for a moment, please."
"No, thank you," the doctor replied. "There is a case of rheumatism just over the hill, and I must not be idle if I would retain the practice given to me. Not that I make anything but good will as yet, for only the Silverton poor dare trust their lives in my inexperienced hands. But I can afford to wait," and with another flash of the hazel eyes Morris walked away a pace or two, but, as if struck with some sudden thought, turned back, and fanning his heated face with his leghorn hat, said, hesitatingly: "By the way, Uncle Ephraim's last payment on the old mill falls due to-morrow. Tell him, if he says anything in your presence, not to mind unless it is perfectly convenient. He must be somewhat straitened just now, as Katy's trip cannot have cost him a small sum."
The clear, penetrating eyes were looking full at Mrs. Lennox, who for a moment felt slightly piqued that Morris Grant should take so much oversight of her uncle's affairs. It was natural, too, that he should, she knew, for, widely different as were their tastes and positions in life, there was a strong liking between the old man and the young, who, from having lived nine years in the family, took a kindly interest in everything pertaining to them.
"Uncle Ephraim did not pay the bills," Mrs. Lennox faltered at last, feeling intuitively how Morris' delicate sense of propriety would shrink from her next communication. "Mrs. Woodhull wrote that the expense should be nothing to me, and as she is fully able, and makes so much of Katy, I did not think it wrong."
"Lucy Lennox! I am astonished!" was all Morris could say, as the tinge of wounded pride dyed his cheek.
Kate was a connection—distant, it is true; but his blood was in her veins, and his inborn pride shrank from receiving so much from strangers, while he wondered at her mother, feeling more and more convinced that what he had so long suspected was literally true. Mrs. Lennox was weak, Mrs. Lennox was ambitious, and for the sake of associating her daughter with people whom the world had placed above her she would stoop to accept that upon which she had no claim.
"Mrs. Woodhull was so urgent and so fond of Katy; and then, I thought it well to give her the advantage of being with such people as compose that party, the very first in Canandaigua, besides some from New York," Mrs. Lennox began in self-defense, but Morris did not stop to hear more, and hurried off a second time, while Mrs. Lennox looked after him, wondering at the feeling which she called pride, and which she could not understand. "If Katy can go with the Woodhulls and their set, I certainly shall not prevent it," she thought, as she continued her arrangement of the parlor, wishing so much that it was more like what she remembered Mrs. Woodhull's to have been, fifteen years ago.
Of course that lady had kept up with the times, and if her old house was finer than anything Mrs. Lennox had ever seen, what must her new one be, with all the modern improvements? and, leaning her head upon the mantel, Mrs. Lennox thought how proud she would be could she live to see her daughter in similar circumstances to the envied Mrs. Woodhull, at that moment in the crowded car between Boston and Silverton, tired, hot, and dusty, worn out, and as nearly cross as a fashionable lady can be.
A call from Uncle Ephraim aroused her, and going out into the square entry she tied his gingham cravat, and then handing him the big umbrella, an appendage he took with him in sunshine and in storm, she watched him as he stepped into his one-horse wagon and drove briskly away in the direction of the depot, where he was to meet his niece.
"I wish Cousin Morris had offered his carriage," she thought, as the corn-colored and white wagon disappeared from view. "The train stops five minutes at West Silverton, and some of those grand people will be likely to see the turnout," and with a sigh as she doubted whether it were not a disgrace as well as an inconvenience to be poor, she repaired to the kitchen, where sundry savory smells betokened a plentiful dinner.
Bending over the sink, with her cap strings tucked back, her sleeves rolled up, and her short, purple calico shielded from harm by her broad, motherly check apron, Aunt Betsy stood cleaning the silvery onions, and occasionally wiping her dim old eyes as the odor proved too strong for her. At another table stood Aunt Hannah, deep in the mysteries of the light, white crust which was to cover the tender chicken boiling in the pot, while in the oven bubbled and baked the custard pie, remembered as Katy's favorite, and prepared for her coming by Helen herself—plain-spoken, blue-eyed Helen—now out in the strawberry beds, picking the few luscious berries which almost by a miracle had been coaxed to wait for Katy, who loved them so dearly. Like her mother, Helen had wondered how the change would impress her bright little sister, for she remembered well that even to her obtuse perceptions there had come a pang when, after only three months abiding in a place where the etiquette of life was rigidly enforced, she had returned to their homely ways, and felt that it was worse than vain to try to effect a change. But Helen's strong sense, with the help of two or three good cries, had carried her safely through, and her humble home amid the hills was very dear to her now. But she was Helen, as the mother had said; she was different from Katy, who might be lonely and homesick, sobbing herself to sleep in her patient sister's arms, as she did on that first night in Canandaigua, which Helen remembered so well.
"It's better, too, now, than when I came home," Helen thought, as with her rich, scarlet fruit she went slowly to the house. "Morris is here, and the new church, and if she likes she can teach in Sunday school, though maybe she will prefer going with Uncle Ephraim. He will be pleased if she does," and, pausing by the door, Helen looked across Fairy Pond in the direction of Silverton village, where the top of a slender spire was just visible—the spire of St. John's, built within the year, and mostly, as it was whispered, at the expense of Dr. Morris Grant, who, a zealous churchman himself, had labored successfully to instill into Helen's mind some of his own peculiar views, as well as to awaken in Mrs. Lennox's heart the professions which had lain dormant for as long a time as the little black-bound book had lain on the cupboard shelf, forgotten and unread.
How the doctor's views were regarded by the deacon's family we shall see, perhaps, by and by. At present our story has to do with Helen, holding her bowl of berries by the rear door and looking across the distant fields. With one last glance at the object of her thoughts she re-entered the house, where her mother was arranging the square table for dinner, bringing out the white stone china instead of the mulberry set kept for everyday use.
"We ought to have had some silver forks before Katy came home," she said, despondingly,
