"I beg pardon for this assault upon you," the stranger said; and then, turning to the boy, he continued: "It's all right, you need not wait."
With a chirrup and a blow the horse started forward, and the mud-bespattered vehicle was rapidly moving down the road ere Helen had recovered her surprise at recognizing Mark Ray, who shook the raindrops from his hair, and offering her his hand said in reply to her involuntary exclamation: "I thought it was Katy." "Shall I infer, then, that I am the less welcome?" and his bright, saucy eyes looked laughingly into hers. "Business had brought him to Southbridge," he said, "and it was his intention to take the cars that afternoon for New York, but having been detained longer than he expected, and not liking the looks of the hotel arrangements, he had decided to presume upon his acquaintance with Dr. Grant and spend the night at Linwood. But," and again his eyes looked straight at Helen, "it rained so hard and the light from your window was so inviting that I ventured to stop, so here I am, claiming your hospitality until morning, if convenient; if not, I will find my way to Linwood."
There was something in this pleasant familiarity which won Uncle Ephraim at once, and he bade the young man stay, as did Aunt Hannah and Mrs. Lennox, who now for the first time were presented to Mark Ray. Always capable of adapting himself to the circumstances around him, Mark did so now with so much ease and courteousness as to astonish Helen, and partly thaw the reserve she had assumed when she found the visitor was from the hated city.
"Are you expecting Mrs. Cameron?" he asked, adding as Helen explained that she was coming to-morrow: "That is strange. Wilford wrote decidedly that he should be in New York to-morrow. Possibly, though, he does not intend himself to stop."
"I presume not," Helen replied, a weight suddenly lifting from her heart at the prospect of not having to entertain the formidable brother-in-law who, if he stayed long, would spoil all her pleasure.
Thus at her ease on this point, she grew more talkative, half wishing that her dress was not a shilling calico, or her hair combed back quite so straight, giving her that severe look which Morris had said was unbecoming. It was very smooth and glossy, and even Sybil Grandon would have given her best diamond to have had in her own natural right the long heavy coil of hair bound so many times around the back of Helen's head, ornamented with neither ribbon, comb, nor bow--only a single geranium leaf, with a white and scarlet blossom, was fastened just below the ear, and on the side where Mark could see it best, admiring its effect and forgetting the arrangement of the hair in his admiration of the well-shaped head, bending so industriously over the work which Helen had resumed--not crocheting, nor yet embroidery, but the very homely work of darning Uncle Ephraim's socks, a task which Helen always did, and on that particular night. Helen knew it was not delicate employment and there was a moment's hesitancy as she wondered what Mark would think--then with a grim delight in letting him see that she did not care, she resumed her darning needle, and as a kind of penance of the flash of pride in which she had indulged, selected from the basket the very coarsest, ugliest sock she could find, stretching out the huge fracture at the heel to its utmost extent, and attacking it with a right good will, while Mark, with a comical look on his face, sat watching her. She knew he was looking at her, and her cheeks were growing very red, while her hatred of him was increasing, when he said, abruptly: "You follow my mother's custom, I see. She used to mend my socks on Tuesday nights."