“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.