It was all very rural, no doubt, and very charming to people who liked it, but Wilford did _not_ like it, and he was wishing himself safely in New York when a golden head flashed for an instant before the window and then disappeared as Katy emerged into view, waiting at the door to receive him and looking so sweetly in her dress of white with the scarlet geranium blossoms in her hair that Wilford forgot the homeliness of the surroundings, thinking only of her and how soft and warm was the little hand he held as she led him into the parlor. He did not know she was so beautiful, he said to himself, and he feasted his eyes upon her, forgetful for a time of all else. But afterwards, when Katy left him for a moment, he had time to observe the well-worn carpet, the six cane-seated chairs, large stuffed rocking-chair, the fall-leaf table, with its plain wool spread, and lastly the really expensive piano, the only handsome piece of furniture the room contained, and which he rightly guessed must have come from Morris. “What _would_ Juno or Mark say?” he kept repeating to himself half shuddering as he recalled the bantering proposition to accompany him made by Mark Ray, the only young man whom he considered fully his equal in New York. Wilford knew these feelings were unworthy of him, and he tried to shake them off, listlessly turning over the books upon the table—books which betokened in someone both taste and talent of no low order. “Mark’s favorite,” he said, lifting up a volume of Schiller; and turning to the fly-leaf he read, “Helen Lennox, from Cousin Morris,” just as Katy returned with her sister, whom she presented to the stranger. Helen was prepared to like him because Katy did, and her first thought was that he was very fine looking; but when she met his cold, proud eyes, and knew how closely he was scrutinizing her, there arose in her heart a feeling of dislike which she could never wholly conquer. He was very polite to her, but something in his manner annoyed and irritated her, it was so cool, so condescending, as if he endured her merely because she was Katy’s sister, nothing more. “Rather pretty, more character than Katy, but odd and self-willed, with no kind of style,” was Wilford’s running comment on Helen as he took her in from the plain arrangement of her dark hair to the fit of her French calico and the cut of her linen collar.