le whom I fancy your Sister Helen would enjoy. I have only met
her twice, it is true, but my impression is that she would not find New
York utterly distasteful."

Mark did not know why he had dragged Helen into that conversation,
unless it were that she seemed very near to him as he talked with Katy,
who replied:

"Yes, Helen finds some good in all. She sees differently from what I do,
and I wish so much that she was here."

"Why not send for her?" Mark asked, casting about in his mind whether in
case Helen came, he, too, could tarry for a week and leave that business
in Southbridge, which he must attend to ere returning to the city.

It would be a study to watch Helen Lennox there at Newport, and in
imagination Mark was already her sworn knight, shielding her from
criticism, and commanding her respect from those who respected him, when
Katy tore his castle down by answering impulsively:

"I doubt if Wilford would let me send for her here, nor does it matter,
as I shall not remain much longer. I do not need her now, since you have
showed me how foolish I have been. I was angry at first, but now I thank
you for it, and so would Helen. I shall tell her when I am in Silverton.
I am going there from here, and oh, I so wish it was to-day."

The guests were beginning to return from the beach by this time, and as
Mark had said all he had intended saying, and even more, he left Katy
with Wilford, who had just come in and joined a merry party of
Bostonians only that day arrived. That night at the Ocean House the
guests missed something from their festivities; the dance was not so
exhilarating or the small-talk between them so lively, while more than
one white-kidded dandy swore mentally at the innocent Wilford, whose
wife declined to join in the gayeties, and in a plain white muslin, with
only a pond lily in her hair, kept by her husband's side,
notwithstanding that he more than once bade her leave him and accept
some of her numerous invitations to join the giddy dance. This sober
phase of Katy did not on the whole please Wilford as much as her gayer
ones had done. Perfectly sure of her devotion to himself, he liked to
watch her as she glided amid the throng which paid her so much homage.
All he had ever dreamed of the sensation his bride would create was more
than verified. Katy had fulfilled his highest expectations, reaching a
point from which, as she had said to Mark, she could even dictate to his
mother, if she chose,