"This is weak, this is folly," she suddenly exclaimed, as she became conscious of acting as Helen Lennox was not wont to act, and with a strong effort of the will she dried her tears and crept quietly to bed just as Mark was falling into his first sleep, and dreaming of smothering.
Helen would not have acknowledged it, and yet it was a truth not to be denied, that she stayed next morning a much longer time than usual before her glass, arranging her hair, which was worn more becomingly than on the previous night, softening the somewhat too intellectual expression of her face, and making her seem more womanly and modest. Once she thought to wear the light buff gown in which she looked so well, but the thought was repudiated as soon as formed, and donning the same dark calico she would have worn if Mark had not been there, she finished her simple toilet and went downstairs, just as Mark came in at the side door, his hands full of water lilies and his boots bearing marks of what he had been through to get them.
"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.