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[Illustration: Mary J Holmes]




                           THE CAMERON PRIDE
                                   OR
                         PURIFIED BY SUFFERING
                                A Novel


                                   BY
                          MRS. MARY J. HOLMES

  AUTHOR OF “TEMPEST AND SUNSHINE,” “HUGH WORTHINGTON,” “LENA RIVERS,”
                               ETC., ETC.


                                NEW YORK
                            HURST & COMPANY
                               PUBLISHERS




                         MARY J. HOLMES SERIES

                        UNIFORM WITH THIS VOLUME

                           By MARY J. HOLMES

                  Aikenside.
                  Bad Hugh.
                  Cousin Maude.
                  Darkness and Daylight.
                  Dora Deane.
                  Edith Lyle’s Secret.
                  English Orphans, The.
                  Ethelyn’s Mistake.
                  Family Pride.
                  Homestead on the Hillside, The.
                  Hugh Worthington.
                  Leighton Homestead, The.
                  Lena Rivers.
                  Maggie Miller.
                  Marion Grey.
                  Meadow Brook.
                  Mildred; or, The Child of Adoption.
                  Millbank; or, Roger Irving’s Ward.
                  Miss McDonald.
                  Rector of St. Marks, The.
                  Rosamond.
                  Rose Mather.
                  Tempest and Sunshine.

       _Price, postpaid, 50c. each, or any three books for $1.25_

                            HURST & COMPANY
                       PUBLISHERS,      NEW YORK




                                   TO

                              MY BROTHER,

                              Kirke Hawes,

         IN MEMORY OF THE OCTOBER DAY WHEN WE RAMBLED OVER THE

                            SILVERTON HILLS,

                     WHERE MORRIS AND KITTY LIVED,

                              THIS VOLUME

                      IS AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED.

  _Brown Cottage, February 22, 1867._




                               CONTENTS.


             CHAPTER                                    PAGE
                  I. The Farm-house at Silverton           7
                 II. Linwood                              19
                III. Wilford Cameron                      26
                 IV. Preparing for the Visit              35
                  V. Wilford’s Visit                      41
                 VI. In the Spring                        51
                VII. Wilford’s Second Visit               58
               VIII. Getting Ready to be Married          68
                 IX. Before the Marriage                  79
                  X. Marriage at St. John’s               85
                 XI. After the Marriage                   89
                XII. First Months of Married Life         99
               XIII. Katy’s First Evening in New York    109
                XIV. Extracts from Bell Cameron’s Diary  121
                 XV. Toning Down—Bell’s Diary Continued  124
                XVI. Katy                                130
               XVII. The New House                       135
              XVIII. Marian Hazelton                     144
                XIX. Saratoga and Newport                151
                 XX. Mark Ray at Silverton               156
                XXI. A New Life                          169
               XXII. Helen in Society                    183
              XXIII. Baby’s Name                         193
               XXIV. Trouble in the Household            198
                XXV. Aunt Betsy goes on a Journey        211
               XXVI. Aunt Betsy Consults a Lawyer        226
              XXVII. The Dinner Party                    234
             XXVIII. The Seventh Regiment                241
               XXIX. Katy goes to Silverton              247
                XXX. Little Genevra                      259
               XXXI. After the Funeral                   269
              XXXII. The First Wife                      274
             XXXIII. What the Page Disclosed             281
              XXXIV. The Effect                          290
               XXXV. The Interview                       292
              XXXVI. The Fever and its Results           302
             XXXVII. The Confession                      308
            XXXVIII. Domestic Troubles                   316
              XXXIX. What Followed                       327
                 XL. Mark and Helen                      331
                XLI. Christmas Eve at Silverton          335
               XLII. After Christmas Eve                 345
              XLIII. Georgetown Hospital                 349
               XLIV. Last Hours                          359
                XLV. Mourning                            366
               XLVI. Prisoners of War                    368
              XLVII. Doctor Grant                        372
             XLVIII. Katy                                385
               XLIX. The Prisoners                       390
                  L. The Day of the Wedding              396
                 LI. The Wedding                         404
                LII. Conclusion                          408




                           THE CAMERON PRIDE;

                       OR, PURIFIED BY SUFFERING.




                               CHAPTER I.
                      THE FARM-HOUSE AT SILVERTON.


Uncle Ephraim Barlow was an old-fashioned man, clinging to the old-time
customs of his fathers, and looking with but little toleration upon what
he termed the “new-fangled notions” of the present generation. Born and
reared amid the rocks and hills of the Bay State, his nature partook
largely of the nature of his surroundings, and he grew into manhood with
many a rough point adhering to his character, which, nevertheless, taken
as a whole, was, like the wild New England scenery, beautiful and grand.
None knew Uncle Ephraim Barlow but to respect him, and at the church in
which he was a deacon, few would have been missed more than the tall,
muscular man, with the long white hair, who, Sunday after Sunday, walked
slowly up the middle aisle to his accustomed seat before the altar, and
who regularly passed the contribution box, bowing involuntarily in token
of approbation when a neighbor’s gift was larger than its wont, and
gravely dropping in his own ten cents—never more, never less, always ten
cents—his weekly offering, which he knew amounted in a year to just five
dollars and twenty cents. And still Uncle Ephraim was not stingy, as the
Silverton poor could testify, for many a load of wood and bag of meal
found entrance to the doors where cold and hunger would have otherwise
been, while to his minister he was literally a holder up of the weary
hands, and a comforter in the time of trouble.

His helpmeet, Aunt Hannah, like that virtuous woman mentioned in the
Bible, was one “who seeketh wool and flax, and worketh willingly with
her hands, who riseth while yet it is night, and giveth meat to her
household,” while Miss Betsy Barlow, the deacon’s maiden sister, was a
character in her way, and bore no resemblance to those frivolous females
to whom the Apostle Paul had reference when he condemned the plaiting of
hair and the wearing of gold and jewels. Quaint, queer and
simple-hearted, she had but little idea of any world this side of
heaven, except the one bounded by the “huckleberry” hills and the
crystal waters of Fairy Pond, which from the back door of the farm-house
were plainly seen, both in the summer sunshine and when the intervening
fields were covered with the winter snow.

The home of such a trio was, like themselves, ancient and unpretentious,
nearly one hundred years having elapsed since the solid foundation was
laid to a portion of the building. Unquestionably it was the oldest
house in Silverton, for on the heavy oaken door of what was called the
back room was still to be seen the mark of a bullet, left there by some
marauders who, during the Revolution, had encamped in that neighborhood.
George Washington, it was said, had spent a night beneath its roof, the
deacon’s mother pouring for him her Bohea tea and breaking her home-made
bread. Since that time several attempts had been made to modernize the
house. Lath and plaster had been put upon the rafters and paper upon the
walls, wooden latches had given place to iron, while in the parlor,
where Washington had slept, there was the extravagance of a porcelain
knob, such, as Uncle Ephraim said, was only fit for gentry who could
afford to be grand. For himself he was content to live as his father
did; but young folks, he supposed, must in some things have their way,
and so when his pretty niece, who had lived with him from childhood to
the day of her marriage, came back to him a widow, bringing her two
fatherless children and a host of new ideas, he good-humoredly suffered
her to tear down some of his household idols and replace them with her
own. And thus it was that the farm-house gradually changed its
appearance, for young womanhood which has had one glimpse of the outer
world will not settle down quietly amid fashions a century old. Lucy
Lennox, when she returned to the farm-house, was not quite the same as
when she went away. Indeed, Aunt Betsy in her guileless heart feared
that she had actually fallen from grace, imputing the fall wholly to
Lucy’s predilection for a certain little book on whose back was written
“Common Prayer,” and at which Aunt Betsy scarcely dared to look, lest
she should be guilty of the enormities practiced by the Romanists
themselves. Clearer headed than his sister, the deacon read the
black-bound book, finding therein much that was good, but wondering
“why, when folks promised to renounce the pomps and vanities, they did
not do so, instead of acting more stuck up than ever.” Inconsistency was
the underlying strata of the whole Episcopal Church, he said, and as
Lucy had declared her preference for that church, he too, in a measure,
charged her propensity for repairs to the same source with Aunt Betsy;
but, as he could see no sin in what she did, he suffered her in most
things to have her way. But when she contemplated an attack upon the
huge chimney occupying the centre of the building, he interfered; for
there was nothing he liked better than the bright fire on the hearth
when the evenings grew chilly and long, and the autumn rain was falling
upon the roof. The chimney should stand, he said; and as no amount of
coaxing could prevail on him to revoke his decision, the chimney stood,
and with it the three fire-places, where, in the fall and spring, were
burned the twisted knots too bulky for the kitchen stove. This was
fourteen years ago, and in that lapse of time Lucy Lennox had gradually
fallen in with the family ways of living, and ceased to talk of her
cottage in western New York, where her husband had died and where were
born her daughters, one of whom she was expecting home on the warm July
day when our story opens.

Katy Lennox had been for a year an inmate of Canandaigua Seminary,
whither she was sent at the expense of a distant relative to whom her
father had been guardian, and who, during her infancy, had had a home
with Uncle Ephraim, Mrs. Lennox having brought him with her when she
returned to Silverton. Dr. Morris Grant he was now, and he had just come
home from a three years’ sojourn in Paris, and was living in his own
handsome dwelling across the fields toward Silverton village, and half a
mile or more from Uncle Ephraim’s farm-house. He had written from Paris,
offering to send his cousins, Helen and Kate, to any school their mother
might select, and as Canandaigua was her choice, they had both gone
thither the year before, but Helen, the eldest, had fallen sick within
the first three months, and returned to Silverton, satisfied that the
New England schools were good enough for her. This was Helen; but Katy
was different. Katy was more susceptible of polish and refinement—so the
mother thought; and as she arranged and rearranged the little parlor,
lingering longest by the piano, Dr. Morris’s gift, she drew bright
pictures of her favorite child, wondering how the farm-house and its
inmates would seem to her after all she must have seen during her weeks
of travel since the close of the summer term. And then she wondered why
cousin Morris was so annoyed when told that Katy had accepted an
invitation to accompany Mrs. Woodhull and her party on a trip to
Montreal and Lake George, taking Boston on her homeward route. Katy’s
movements were nothing to him, unless—and the little ambitious mother
struck at random a few notes of the soft-toned piano as she thought how
possible it was that the interest always manifested by staid, quiet
Morris Grant for her light-hearted Kate was more than a brotherly
interest, such as he would naturally feel for the daughter of one who
had been to him a second father. But Katy was so much a child when he
went away to Paris that it could not be. She would sooner think of
Helen, who was more like him.

“It’s Helen, if anybody,” she said aloud, just as a voice near the
window called out, “Please, Cousin Lucy, relieve me of these flowers. I
brought them over in honor of Katy’s return.”

Blushing guiltily, Mrs. Lennox advanced to meet a tall, dark-looking
man, with a grave, pleasant face, which, when he smiled, was strangely
attractive, from the sudden lighting up of the hazel eyes and the
glitter of the white, even teeth disclosed so fully to view.

“Oh, thank you, Morris! Katy will like them, I am sure,” Mrs. Lennox
said, taking from his hand a bouquet of the choice flowers which grew
only in the hothouse at Linwood. “Come in for a moment, please.”

“No, thank you,” the doctor replied. “There is a case of rheumatism just
over the hill, and I must not be idle if I would retain the practice
given to me. Not that I make anything but good will as yet, for only the
Silverton poor dare trust their lives in my inexperienced hands. But I
can afford to wait,” and with another flash of the hazel eyes Morris
walked away a pace or two, then, as if struck with some sudden thought,
turned back, and fanning his heated face with his leghorn hat, said,
hesitatingly, “By the way, Uncle Ephraim’s last payment on the old mill
falls due to-morrow. Tell him, if he says anything in your presence, not
to mind unless it is perfectly convenient. He must be somewhat
straitened just now, as Katy’s trip cannot have cost him a small sum.”

The clear, penetrating eyes were looking full at Mrs. Lennox, who for a
moment felt slightly piqued that Morris Grant should take so much
oversight of her uncle’s affairs. It was natural, too, that he should,
she knew, for there was a strong liking between the old man and the
young, the latter of whom, having lived nine years in the family, took a
kindly interest in everything pertaining to it.

“Uncle Ephraim did not pay the bills,” Mrs. Lennox faltered at last,
feeling intuitively how Morris’s delicate sense of propriety would
shrink from her next communication. “Mrs. Woodhull wrote that the
expense should be nothing to me, and as she is fully able and makes so
much of Katy, I did not think it wrong.”

“Lucy Lennox! I am astonished!” was all Morris could say, as the tinge
of wounded pride dyed his cheek.

Kate was a connection—distant, it is true; but his blood was in her
veins, and his inborn pride shrank from receiving so much from
strangers, while he wondered at her mother, feeling more and more
convinced that what he had so long suspected was literally true. Mrs.
Lennox was weak, Mrs. Lennox was ambitious, and for the sake of
associating her daughter with people whom the world had placed above her
she would stoop to accept that upon which she had no claim.

“Mrs. Woodhull was so urgent and so fond of Katy; and then I thought it
well to give her the advantage of being with such people as compose that
party, the very first in Canandaigua, besides some from New York,” Mrs.
Lennox began in self-defence, but Morris did not stop to hear more, and
hurried off a second time, while Mrs. Lennox looked after him, wondering
at the feeling which she could not understand. “If Katy can go with the
Woodhulls and their set, I certainly shall not prevent it,” she thought,
as she continued her arrangement of the parlor, wishing that it was more
like what she remembered Mrs. Woodhull’s to have been, fifteen years
ago.

Of course that lady had kept up with the times, and if her old house was
finer than anything Mrs. Lennox had ever seen, what must her new one be,
with all the modern improvements? and leaning her head upon the mantel,
Mrs. Lennox thought how proud she should be could she live to see her
daughter in similar circumstances to the envied Mrs. Woodhull, at that
moment in the crowded car between Boston and Silverton, tired, hot, and
dusty, and as nearly cross as a fashionable lady can be.

A call from Uncle Ephraim roused her, and going out into the square
entry she tied his linen cravat, and then handing him the blue umbrella,
an appendage he took with him in sunshine and in storm, she watched him
as he stepped into his one-horse wagon and drove briskly away in the
direction of the depot, where he was to meet his niece.

“I wish Cousin Morris had offered his carriage,” she thought, as the
corn-colored wagon disappeared from view. “The train stops five minutes
at West Silverton, and some of those grand people will be likely to see
the turnout,” and with a sigh as she doubted whether it were not a
disgrace as well as an inconvenience to be poor, she repaired to the
kitchen, where sundry savory smells betokened a plentiful dinner.

Bending over the sink, with her cap strings tucked back, her sleeves
rolled up, and her short purple calico shielded from harm by her broad
check apron, Aunt Betsy stood cleaning the silvery onions, and
occasionally wiping her dim old eyes as the odor proved too strong for
her. At another table stood Aunt Hannah, deep in the mysteries of the
light white crust which was to cover the tender chicken boiling in the
pot, while in the oven bubbled and baked the custard pie, remembered
as Katy’s favorite, and prepared for her coming by Helen
herself—plain-spoken, dark-eyed Helen—now out in the strawberry beds,
picking the few luscious berries which almost by a miracle had been
coaxed to wait for Katy, who loved them so dearly. Like her mother,
Helen had wondered how the change would impress her bright little
sister, for she remembered that even to her obtuse perceptions there
had come a pang when after only three months abiding in a place where
the etiquette of life was rigidly enforced, she had returned to their
homely ways at Silverton, and felt that it was worse than vain to try
to effect a change. But Helen’s strong sense, with the help of two or
three good cries, had carried her safely through, and her humble home
among the hills was very dear to her now. But she was Helen, as the
mother had said; she was different from Katy, who might be lonely and
homesick, sobbing herself to sleep in her patient sister’s arms, as
she did on that first night in Canandaigua, which Helen remembered so
well.

“It’s better, too, now than when I came home,” Helen thought, as with
her rich, scarlet fruit she went slowly to the house. “Morris is here,
and the new church, and if she likes she can teach Sunday-school, though
maybe she will prefer going with Uncle Ephraim. He will be pleased if
she does,” and pausing by the door, Helen looked across Fairy Pond in
the direction of Silverton village, where the top of a slender spire was
just visible—the spire of St. John’s, built within the year, and mostly
at the expense of Dr. Morris Grant, who, a zealous churchman himself,
had labored successfully to instill into Helen’s mind some of his own
peculiar views, as well as to awaken in Mrs. Lennox’s heart the
professions which had lain dormant for as long a time as the little
black bound book had lain on the cupboard shelf, forgotten and unread.

How the doctor’s views were regarded by the Deacon’s family we shall
see, by and by. At present our story has to do with Helen, holding her
bowl of berries by the rear door and looking across the distant fields.
With one last glance at the object of her thoughts she re-entered the
house, where her mother was arranging the square table for dinner,
bringing out the white stone china instead of the mulberry set kept for
every day use.

“We ought to have some silver forks,” she said despondingly, as she laid
by each plate the three tined forks of steel, to pay for which Helen and
Katy had picked huckle-berries on the hills and dried apples from the
orchard.

“Never mind, mother,” Helen answered cheerily: “if Katy is as she used
to be she will care more for us than for silver, and I guess she is, for
I imagine it would take a great deal to make her anything but a
warmhearted, merry little creature.”

This was sensible Helen’s tribute of affection to the little, gay,
chattering butterfly, at that moment an occupant of Uncle Ephraim’s
corn-colored wagon, and riding with that worthy toward home, throwing
kisses to every barefoot boy and girl she met, and screaming with
delight as the old familiar way-marks met her view.

“There is Aunt Betsy, with her dress pinned up as usual,” she cried,
when at last the wagon stopped before the door, and the four women came
hurriedly out to meet her, almost smothering her with caresses, and then
holding her off to see if she had changed.

She was very stylish in her pretty traveling dress of gray, made under
Mrs. Woodhull’s supervision, and nothing could be more becoming than her
jaunty hat, tied with ribbons of blue, while the dainty kids, bought to
match the dress, fitted her fat hands charmingly, and the little
high-heeled boots of soft prunella were faultless in their style. She
was very attractive in her personal appearance, and the mental verdict
of the four females regarding her intently was something as follows:
Mrs. Lennox detected unmistakable marks of the grand society she had
been mingling in, and was pleased accordingly; Aunt Hannah pronounced
her “the prettiest creeter she had ever seen;” Aunt Betsy decided that
her hoops were too big and her clothes too fine for a Barlow; while
Helen, who looked beyond dress, or style, or manner, straight into her
sister’s soft blue eyes, brimming with love and tears, decided that Katy
was not changed for the worse. Nor was she. Truthful, loving,
simple-hearted and full of playful life she had gone from home, and she
came back the same, never once thinking of the difference between the
farm-house and Mrs. Woodhull’s palace, or if she did, giving the
preference to the former.

“It was perfectly splendid to get home,” she said, handing her gloves to
Helen, her sun-shade to her mother, her satchel to Aunt Hannah, and
tossing her bonnet in the vicinity of the water pail, from which it was
saved by Aunt Betsy, who put it carefully in the press, examining it
closely first and wondering how much it cost.

Deciding that “it was a good thumpin’ price,” she returned to the
kitchen, where Katy, dancing and curvetting in circles, scarcely stood
still long enough for them to see that in spite of boarding-school fare,
of which she had complained so bitterly, her cheeks were rounder, her
eyes brighter, and her figure fuller than of old. She had improved, but
she did not appear to know it, or to guess how beautiful she was in the
fresh bloom of seventeen, with her golden hair waving around her
childish forehead, and her deep blue eyes laughing so expressively with
each change of her constantly varying face. Everything animate and
inanimate pertaining to the old house, came in for its share of notice.
She kissed the kitten, squeezed the cat, hugged the dog, and hugged the
little goat, tied to his post in the clover yard and trying so hard to
get free. The horse, to whom she fed handfuls of grass, had been already
hugged. She did that the first thing after strangling Uncle Ephraim as
she alighted from the train, and some from the car window saw it,
smiling at what they termed the charming simplicity of an enthusiastic
school-girl. Blessed youth! blessed early girlhood, surrounded by a halo
of rare beauty! It was Katy’s shield and buckler, warding off many a
cold criticism which might otherwise have been passed upon her.

They were sitting down to dinner now, and the deacon’s voice trembled
as, with the blessing invoked, he thanked God for bringing back the
little girl, whose head was for a moment bent reverently, but quickly
lifted itself up as its owner, in the same breath with that in which the
deacon uttered his amen, declared how hungry she was, and went into
rhapsodies over the nicely cooked viands which loaded the table. The
best bits were hers that day, and she refused nothing until it came to
Aunt Betsy’s onions, once her special delight, but now declined, greatly
to the distress of the old lady, who having been on the watch for
“quirks,” as she styled any departure from long established customs, now
knew she had found one, and with an injured expression withdrew the
offered bowl, saying sadly, “You used to eat ’em raw, Cathe_rine_;
what’s got into you?”

It was the first time Aunt Betsy had called a name so obnoxious to Kate,
especially when, as in the present case, great emphasis was laid upon
the _rine_, and from past experience Katy knew that her good aunt was
displeased. Her first impulse was to accept the dish refused; but when
she remembered her reason for refusing she said, laughingly, “Excuse me,
Aunt Betsy, I love them still, but—but—well, the fact is, I am going by
and by to run over and see Cousin Morris, inasmuch as he was not polite
enough to come here, and you know it might not be so pleasant.”

“The land!” and Aunt Betsy brightened. “If that’s all, eat ’em. ’Tain’t
no ways likely you’ll get near enough to him to make any difference—only
turn your head when you shake hands.”

But Katy remained incorrigible, while Helen, who guessed that her
impulsive sister was contemplating a warmer greeting of the doctor than
a mere shaking of his hands, kindly turned the conversation by telling
how Morris was improved by his tour abroad, and how much the poor people
thought of him.

“He is very fine looking, too,” she said, whereupon Katy involuntarily
exclaimed, “I wonder if he is as handsome as Wilford Cameron? Oh, I
never wrote about him, did I?” and the little maiden began to blush as
she stirred her tea industriously.

“Who is Wilford Cameron?” asked Mrs. Lennox.

“Oh, he’s Wilford Cameron, that’s all; lives on Fifth Avenue—is a
lawyer—is very rich—a friend of Mrs. Woodhull, and was with us in our
travels,” Kate answered rapidly, the red burning on her cheeks so
brightly that Aunt Betsy innocently passed her a big feather fan, saying
“she looked mighty hot.”

And Katy was warm, but whether from talking of Wilford Cameron or not
none could tell. She said no more of him, but went on to speak of
Morris, asking if it were true, as she had heard, that he built the new
church in Silverton.

“Yes, and runs it, too,” Aunt Betsy answered, energetically, proceeding
to tell “what goin’s on they had, with the minister shiftin’ his clothes
every now and agin’ and the folks all talkin’ together. Morris got me in
once,” she said, “and I thought meetin’ was let out half a dozen times,
so much histin’ round as there was. I’d as soon go to a show, if it was
a good one, and I told Morris so. He laughed and said I’d feel different
when I knew ’em better; but needn’t tell me that prayers made up is as
good as them as isn’t, though Morris, I do believe, will get to Heaven a
long ways ahead of me, if he is a ’Piscopal.”

To this there was no response, and being launched on her favorite topic,
Aunt Betsy continued:

“If you’ll believe it, Helen here is one of ’em, and has got a sight of
’Piscopal quirks into her head. Why, she and Morris sing that
talkin’-like singin’ Sundays when the folks get up and Helen plays the
accordeon.”

“Melodeon, aunty, melodeon,” and Helen laughed merrily at her aunt’s
mistake, turning the conversation again, and this time to Canandaigua,
where she had some acquaintances.

But Katy was so much afraid of Canandaigua, and what talking of it might
lead to, that she kept to Cousin Morris, asking innumerable questions
about his house and grounds, and whether there were as many flowers
there now as there used to be in the days when she and Helen went to say
their lessons at Linwood, as they had done before Morris sailed for
Europe.

“I think it right mean in him not to be here to see me,” she said,
poutingly, “and I am going over as quick as I eat my dinner.”

But against this all exclaimed at once. She was too tired, the mother
said, she must lie down and rest, while Helen suggested that she had not
told them about her trip, and Uncle Ephraim remarked that she would not
find Morris at home, as he was going that afternoon to Spencer. This
last settled it. Katy must stay at home; but instead of lying down or
talking about her journey, she explored every nook and crevice of the
old house and barn, finding the nest Aunt Betsy had looked for in vain,
and proving to the anxious dame that she was right when she insisted
that the speckled hen had stolen her nest and was in the act of setting.
Later in the day, a neighbor passing by spied the little maiden riding
in the cart off into the meadow, where she sported like a child among
the mounds of fragrant hay, playing her jokes upon the sober deacon, who
smiled fondly upon her, feeling how much lighter the labor seemed
because she was there with him, a hindrance instead of a help, in spite
of her efforts to handle the rake skillfully.

“Are you glad to have me home again, Uncle Eph?” she asked when once she
caught him regarding her with a peculiar look.

“Yes, Katy-did, very glad?” he answered; “I’ve missed you every day,
though you do nothing much but bother me.”

“Why did you look so funny at me just now?” Kate continued, and the
deacon replied: “I was thinking how hard it would be for such a
highty-tighty thing as you to meet the crosses and disappointments which
lie all along the road which you must travel. I should hate to see your
young life crushed out of you, as young lives sometimes are?”

“Oh, never fear for me. I am going to be happy all my life long. Wilford
Cameron said I ought to be,” and Katy tossed into the air a wisp of the
new-made hay.

“I don’t know who Wilford Cameron is, but there’s no ought about it,”
the deacon rejoined. “God marks out the path for us to walk in, and when
he says it’s best, we know it is, though some are straight and pleasant
and others crooked and hard.”

“I’ll choose the straight and pleasant then—why shouldn’t I?” Katy
asked, laughing, as she seated herself upon a rock near which the hay
cart had stopped.

“Can’t tell what path you’ll take,” the deacon answered. “God knows
whether you’ll go easy through the world, or whether he’ll send you
suffering to purify and make you better.”

“Purified by suffering,” Katy said aloud, while a shadow involuntarily
crept for an instant over her gay spirits.

She could not believe _she_ was to be purified by suffering. She had
never done anything very bad, and humming a part of a song learned from
Wilford Cameron she followed after the loaded cart, returning slowly to
the house, thinking to herself that there must be something great and
good in the suffering which should purify at last, but hoping she was
not the one to whom this great good should come.

It was supper-time ere long, and after that was over Katy announced her
intention of going to Linwood whether Morris were there or not.

“I can see the housekeeper and the birds and flowers,” she said, as she
swung her straw hat by the string and started from the door.

“Ain’t Helen going with you?” Aunt Hannah asked, while Helen herself
looked a little surprised.

But Katy would rather go alone. She had a heap to tell Cousin Morris,
and Helen could go next time.

“Just as you like,” Helen answered, good-naturedly, and so Katy went
alone to call on Morris Grant.




                              CHAPTER II.
                                LINWOOD.


Morris had returned from Spencer, and in his dressing-gown and slippers
was sitting by the window of his library, looking out upon the purple
sunshine flooding the western sky, and thinking of the little girl
coming so rapidly up the grassy lane in the rear of the house. He was
going over to see her by and by, he said, and he pictured to himself how
she must look by this time, hoping that he should not find her greatly
changed, for Morris Grant’s memories were very precious of the
play-child who used to tease and worry him so much with her lessons
poorly learned, and the never-ending jokes played off upon her teacher.
He had thought of her so often when across the sea, and, knowing her
love of the beautiful, he had never looked upon a painting or scene of
rare beauty that he did not wish her by his side sharing in the
pleasure. He had brought her from that far-off land many little trophies
which he thought she would prize, and which he was going to take with
him when he went to the farm-house. He never dreamed of her coming there
to-night. She would, of course, wait for him, to call upon her first.
How then was he amazed when, just as the sun was going down and he was
watching its last rays lingering on the brow of the hill across the
pond, the library door was opened wide and the room suddenly filled with
life and joy, as a graceful figure, with reddish golden hair, bounded
across the floor, and winding its arms around his neck gave him the
hearty kiss which Katy had in her mind when she declined Aunt Betsy’s
favorite vegetable.

Morris Grant was not averse to being kissed, and yet the fact that Katy
Lennox had kissed him in such a way awoke a chill of disappointment, for
it said that to her he was the teacher still, the elder brother, whom,
as a child, she had loaded with caresses.

“Oh, Cousin Morris!” she exclaimed, “why didn’t you come over at noon,
you naughty boy! But what a splendid-looking man you’ve got to be,
though! and what do you think of me?” she added, blushing for the first
time, as he held her off from him and looked into the sunny face.

“I think you wholly unchanged,” he answered, so gravely that Katy began
to pout as she said, “And you are sorry, I know. Pray what did you
expect of me, and what would you have me be?”

“Nothing but what you are—the same Kitty as of old,” he answered, his
own bright smile breaking all over his sober face.

He saw that his manner repelled her, and he tried to be natural,
succeeding so well that Katy forgot her first disappointment, and making
him sit by her on the sofa, where she could see him distinctly, she
poured forth a volley of talk, telling him, among other things, how much
afraid of him some of his letters made her—they were so serious and so
like a sermon.

“You wrote me once that you thought of being a minister,” she added.
“Why did you change your mind? It must be splendid, I think, to be a
young clergyman—invited to so many tea-drinkings, and having all the
girls in the parish after you, as they always are after unmarried
ministers.”

Into Morris Grant’s eyes there stole a troubled light as he thought how
little Katy realized what it was to be a minister of God—to point the
people heavenward and teach them the right way. There was a moment’s
pause, and then he tried to explain to her that he hoped he had not been
influenced either by thoughts of tea-drinkings or having the parish
girls after him, but rather by an honest desire to choose the sphere in
which he could accomplish the most good.

“I did not decide rashly,” he said, “but after weeks of anxious thought
and prayer for guidance I came to the conclusion that in the practice of
medicine I could find perhaps as broad a field for good as in the
church, and so I decided to go on with my profession—to be a physician
of the poor and suffering, speaking to them of Him who came to save, and
in this way I shall not labor in vain. Many would seek another place
than Silverton and its vicinity, but something told me that my work was
here, and so I am content to stay, feeling thankful that my means admit
of my waiting for patients, if need be, and at the same time ministering
to the wants of those who are needy.”

Gradually, as he talked, there came into his face a light born only from
the peace which passeth understanding, and the awe-struck Katy crept
closer to his side and grasping his hand in hers, said softly, “Dear
cousin, what a good man you are, and how silly I must seem to you,
thinking you cared for tea-drinkings, or even girls, when, of course,
you do not.”

“Perhaps I do,” the doctor replied, slightly pressing the warm, fat hand
holding his so fast. “A minister’s or a doctor’s life would be dreary
indeed if there was no one to share it, and I have had my dreams of the
girls, or girl, who was some day to brighten my home.”

He looked fully at Katy now, but she was thinking of something else, and
her next remark was to ask him rather abruptly “how old he was?”

“Twenty-six last May,” he answered, while Katy continued, “You are not
old enough to be married yet. Wilford Cameron is thirty.”

“Where did _you_ meet Wilford Cameron?” Morris asked, in some surprise,
and then the story which Katy had not told, even to her sister, came out
in full, and Morris tried to listen patiently while Katy explained how,
on the very first day of the examination, Mrs. Woodhull had come in, and
with her the grandest, proudest-looking man, who the girls said was Mr.
Wilford Cameron, from New York, a fastidious bachelor, whose family were
noted for their wealth and exclusiveness, keeping six servants, and
living in the finest style; that Mrs. Woodhull, who all through the year
had been very kind to Katy, came to her after school and invited her
home to tea; that she had gone and met Mr. Cameron; that she was very
much afraid of him at first, and was not sure that she was quite over it
now, although he was so polite to her all through the journey, taking so
much pains to have her see the finest sights, and laughing at her
enthusiasm.

“Wilford Cameron with you in your trip?” Morris asked, a new idea
dawning on his mind.

“Yes, let me tell you,” and Katy spoke rapidly. “I saw him that night,
and then Mrs. Woodhull took me to ride with him in the carriage, and
then—well, I rode alone with him once down by the lake, and he talked to
me just as if he was not a grand man and I a little school-girl. And
when the term closed I stayed at Mrs. Woodhull’s and he was there. He
liked my playing and liked my singing, and I guess he liked me—that is,
you know—yes, he liked me _some_” and Katy twisted the fringe of her
shawl, while Morris, in spite of the pain tugging at his heart strings,
laughed aloud as he rejoined, “I have no doubt he did; but go on—what
next?”

“He said more about my joining that party than anybody, and I am very
sure _he_ paid the _bills_.”

“Oh, Katy,” and Morris started as if he had been stung. “I would rather
have given Linwood than have you thus indebted to Wilford Cameron, or
any other man.”

“I could not well help it. I did not mean any harm,” Katy said timidly,
explaining how she had shrunk from the proposition which Mrs. Woodhull
thought was right, urging it until she had consented, and telling how
kind Mr. Cameron was, and how careful not to remind her of her
indebtedness to him, attending to and anticipating every want as if she
had been his sister.

“You would like Mr. Cameron, Cousin Morris. He made me think of you a
little, only he is prouder,” and Katy’s hand moved up Morris’s coat
sleeve till it rested on his shoulder.

“Perhaps so,” Morris answered, feeling a growing resentment towards one
who it seemed to him had done him some great wrong.

But Wilford was not to blame, he reflected. He could not help admiring
the bright little Katy—and so conquering all ungenerous feelings, he
turned to her at last, and said,

“Did my little Cousin Kitty like Wilford Cameron?”

Something in Morris’s voice startled Katy strangely; her hand came down
from his shoulder, and for an instant there swept over her an emotion
similar to what she had felt when with Wilford Cameron she rambled along
the shores of Lake George, or sat alone with him on the deck of the
steamer which carried them down Lake Champlain. But Morris had always
been her brother, and she did not guess that she was more to him than a
sister, so she answered frankly at last, “I guess I did like him a
little. I couldn’t help it, Morris. You could not either, or any one. I
believe Mrs. Woodhull was more than half in love with him herself, and
she talked so much of his family; they must be very grand.”

“Yes, I know those Camerons,” was Morris’s quiet remark.

“What! You don’t know Wilford?” Katy almost screamed, and Morris
replied, “Not Wilford, no; but the mother and the sisters were in Paris,
and I met them many times.”

“What were they doing in Paris?” Katy asked, and Morris replied that he
believed the immediate object of their being there was to obtain the
best medical advice for a little orphan grand-child, a bright, beautiful
boy, to whom some terrible accident had happened in infancy, preventing
his walking entirely, and making him nearly helpless. His name was
Jamie, Morris said, and as he saw that Katy was interested, he told her
how sweet-tempered the little fellow was, how patient under suffering,
and how eagerly he listened when Morris, who at one time attended him,
told him of the Saviour and his love for little children.

“Did he get well?” Katy asked, her eyes filling with tears at the
picture Morris drew of Jamie Cameron, sitting all day long in his wheel
chair, and trying to comfort his grand-mother’s distress when the
torturing instruments for straightening his poor back were applied.

“No, he died one lovely day in October, and they buried him beneath the
bright skies of France,” Morris said, and then Katy asked about the
mother and sisters. “Were they proud, and did he like them much?”

“They were very proud,” Morris said; “but they were always civil to
him,” and Katy, had she been watching, might have seen a slight flush on
his cheek as he told her of the stately woman, Wilford’s mother, of the
haughty Juno, a beauty and a belle, and lastly of Arabella, whom the
family nicknamed Bluebell, from her excessive fondness for books, and
her contempt for the fashionable life her mother and sister led.

It was evident that neither of the young ladies were wholly to Morris’s
taste, but of the two he preferred Bluebell, for though imperious and
self-willed, she had some heart, some principle, while Juno had none.
This was Morris’s opinion, and it disturbed little Katy, as was very
perceptible from the nervous tapping of her foot upon the carpet and the
working of her hands.

“How would _I_ appear by the side of those ladies?” she suddenly asked,
her countenance changing as Morris replied that it was almost impossible
to think of her as associated with the Camerons, she was so wholly
unlike them in every respect.

“I don’t believe I shocked Wilford so very much,” Katy rejoined,
reproachfully, while again a heavy pain shot through Morris’s heart, for
he saw more and more how Wilford Cameron was mingled with every thought
of the young girl, who continued: “And if he was satisfied, his mother
and sisters will be. Any way, I don’t want you to make me feel how
different I am from them.”

There was tears now on Katy’s face, and casting aside all selfishness,
Morris wound his arm around her, and smoothing her golden hair, just as
he used to do when she was a child and came to him to be soothed, he
said, very gently,

“My poor Kitty, you do like Wilford Cameron; tell me honestly—is it not
so?”

“Yes, I guess I do,” and Katy’s voice was a half sob. “I could not help
it, either, he was so kind, so—I don’t know what, only I could not help
doing what he bade me. Why, if he had said, ‘Jump overboard, Katy
Lennox,’ I should have done it, I know—that is, if his eyes had been
upon me, they controlled me so absolutely. Can you imagine what I mean?”

“Yes, I understand. There was the same look in Bell Cameron’s eye, a
kind of mesmeric influence which commanded obedience. They idolize
Wilford, and I dare say he is worthy of their idolatry. One thing at
least is in his favor—the crippled Jamie, for whose opinion I would give
more than all the rest, seemed to worship his Uncle Will; talking of him
continually, and telling how kind he was, sometimes staying up all night
to carry him in his arms when the pain in his back was more than usually
severe. So there must be a good, kind heart in Wilford Cameron, and if
my Cousin Kitty likes him, as she says she does, and he likes her as I
believe he must, why, I hope——”

Morris Grant could not finish the sentence, for he did _not_ hope that
Wilford Cameron would win the gem he had so long coveted as his own.

He might give Kitty up because she loved another best. He was generous
enough to do that, but if he did it, she must never know how much it
cost him, and lest he should betray himself he could not to-night talk
with her longer of Wilford Cameron. It was time too for Kitty to go
home, but she did not seem to remember it until Morris suggested to her
that her mother might be uneasy if she stayed away much longer, and so
they went together across the fields, the shadows all gone from Katy’s
heart, but lying so dark and heavy around Morris Grant, who was glad
when he could leave Katy at the farm-house door and go back alone to the
quiet library, where only God could witness the mighty struggle, it was
for him to say, “Thy will be done.” And while he prayed, Katy, in her
humble bedroom, with her head nestled close to Helen’s neck, was telling
her of Wilford Cameron, who, when they went down the rapids and she had
cried with fear, had put his arm around her trying to quiet her, and who
once again, on the mountain overlooking Lake George, had held her hand a
moment, while he pointed out a splendid view seen through the opening
trees. And Helen, listening, knew that Katy’s heart was lost, and that
for Wilford Cameron to deceive her now would be a cruel thing.




                              CHAPTER III.
                            WILFORD CAMERON.


The day succeeding Katy Lennox’s return to Silverton was rainy and cold
for the season, the storm extending as far westward as the city of New
York, and making Wilford Cameron shiver as he stepped from the Hudson
River cars into the carriage waiting for him, first greeting pleasantly
the white-gloved driver, who, closing the carriage door, mounted to his
seat and drove his handsome bays in the direction of No. —— Fifth
Avenue. And Wilford, leaning back among the cushions, thought how
pleasant it was to be home again, feeling glad, as he frequently did,
that the home was in every particular unexceptionable. The Camerons, he
knew, were an old and highly respectable family, while it was his
mother’s pride that, go back as far as one might, on either side there
could not be found a single blemish, or a member of whom to be ashamed.
On the Cameron side there were millionaires, merchant princes, bankers,
and stockholders, professors and scholars, while on hers, the Rossiter
side, there were LL. D.’s and D. D.’s, lawyers and clergymen, authors
and artists, beauties and bells, the whole forming an illustrious line
of ancestry, admirably represented and sustained by the present family
of Camerons, occupying the brown-stone front, corner of —— street and
Fifth Avenue, where the handsome carriage stopped, and a tall figure ran
quickly up the marble steps. There was a soft rustle of silk, an odor of
delicate perfume, and from the luxurious chair before the fire kindled
in the grate, a lady rose and advanced a step or two towards the parlor
door. In another moment she was kissing the young man bending over her
and saluting her as mother, kissing him quietly, properly, as the
Camerons always kissed. She was very glad to have Wilford home again,
for he was her favorite child; and brushing the rain-drops from his coat
she led him to the fire, offering him her own easy-chair, and starting
herself in quest of another. But Wilford held her back, and making her
sit down, he drew an ottoman beside her, and then asked her first how
she had been, then where his sisters were, and if his father had come
home—for there was a father, a quiet, unassuming man, who stayed all day
in Wall street, seldom coming home in time to carve at his own dinner
table, and when he was at home, asking for nothing except to be left by
his fashionable wife and daughters to himself, free to smoke and doze
over his evening paper in the seclusion of his own reading-room.

As Wilford’s question concerning his sire had been the last one asked,
so it was the last one answered, his mother parting his dark hair with
her jeweled hand, and telling him first that, with the exception of a
cold taken at the Park on Saturday afternoon, she was in usual
health—second, that Juno was spending a few days in Orange, and that
Bell had gone to pass the night with her particular friend, Mrs.
Meredith, the most bookish woman in New York.

“Your father,” the lady added, “has not yet returned; but as the dinner
is ready I think we will not wait.”

She touched a silver bell beside her, and ordering dinner to be sent up
at once, went on to ask her son concerning his journey and the people he
had met. But Wilford, though intending to tell her all, would wait till
after dinner. So, offering her his arm, he led her out to where the
table was spread, widely different from the table prepared for Katy
Lennox among the Silverton hills, for where at the farm-house there had
been only the homely wares common to the country, with Aunt Betsy’s
onions served in a bowl, there was here the finest of damask, the
choicest of china, the costliest of cut-glass, and the heaviest of
silver, with the well-trained waiter gliding in and out, himself the
very personification of strict table etiquette, such as the Barlows had
never dreamed about. There was no fricasseed chicken here, or flaky
crust, with pickled beans and apple-sauce; no custard pie with
strawberries and rich, sweet cream, poured from a blue earthen pitcher;
but there were soups, and fish, and roasted meats, and dishes with
French names and taste, and dessert elaborately gotten up, and served
with the utmost precision, and Mrs. Cameron presiding over all with
lady-like decorum, her soft glossy silk of brown, with her rich lace and
diamond pin in perfect keeping with herself and her surroundings. And
opposite to her Wilford sat, a tall, dark, handsome man, of thirty or
thereabouts—a man, whose polished manners betokened at once a perfect
knowledge of the world, and whose face, to a close observer, indicated
how little satisfaction he had as yet found in the world. He had tried
its pleasures, drinking the cup of freedom and happiness to its very
dregs, and though he thought he liked it, he often found himself
dissatisfied and reaching after something which should make life more
real, more worth the living for. He had traveled all over Europe twice,
had visited every spot worth visiting in his own country, had been a
frequenter of every fashionable resort in New York, from the
skating-pond to the theatres, had been admitted as a lawyer, had opened
an office on Broadway, acquiring some reputation in his profession, had
looked at more than twenty girls with the view of making them his wife,
and found them, as he believed, alike fickle, selfish, artificial and
hollow-hearted. In short, while thinking far more of family, and
accomplishments, and style, than he ought, he was yet heartily tired of
the butterflies who flitted so constantly around him, offering to be
caught if he would but stretch out his hand to catch them. This he would
not do, and disgusted with the world as he saw it in New York, he had
gone to the Far West, roaming awhile amid the solitude of the broad
prairies, and finding there much that was soothing to him, but not
discovering the fulfillment of the great want he was craving until
coming back to Canandaigua, he met with Katy Lennox. He had smiled
wearily when asked by Mrs. Woodhull to go with her to the examination
then in progress at the Seminary. There was nothing there to interest
him, he thought, as Euclid and Algebra, French and Rhetoric were bygone
things, while young school-misses, in braided hair and pantalettes, were
shockingly insipid. Still, to be polite to Mrs. Woodhull, a childless,
fashionable woman, who patronized Canandaigua generally and Katy Lennox
in particular, he consented, and soon found himself in the crowded room,
the cynosure of many eyes as the whisper ran round that the fine-looking
man with Mrs. Woodhull was Wilford Cameron, from New York, brother to
the proud, dashing Juno Cameron, who once spent a few weeks in town.
Wilford knew they were talking about him, but he did not care, and
assuming as easy an attitude as possible, he leaned back in his chair,
yawning indolently until the class in Algebra was called, and Katy
Lennox came tripping on the stage, a pale blue ribbon in her golden
hair, and her simple dress of white relieved by no ornament except the
cluster of wild flowers fastened in her belt and at her throat. But Katy
needed no ornaments to make her more beautiful than she was at the
moment when, with glowing cheeks and sparkling eyes, she first burst
upon Wilford’s vision, a creature of rare, bewitching beauty, such as he
had never dreamed about.

Wilford had met his destiny, and he felt it in every throb of blood
which went rushing through his veins.

“Who is she?” he asked of Mrs. Woodhull, and that lady knew at once whom
he meant, even though he had not designated her.

An old acquaintance of Mrs. Lennox when she lived in East Bloomfield,
Mrs. Woodhull had petted Katy from the first day of her arrival in
Canandaigua with a letter of introduction to herself from the ambitious
mother, and being rather inclined to match-making, she had had Katy in
her mind when she urged Wilford to accompany her to the Seminary.
Accordingly, she answered him at once, “That is Katy Lennox, daughter of
Judge Lennox, who died in East Bloomfield a few years ago.”

“Pretty, is she not?”

Wilford did not answer her. He had neither eye nor ear for anything save
Katy, acquitting herself with a good deal of credit as she worked out a
rather difficult problem, her dimpled white hand showing to good
advantage against the deep black of the board; and then her voice,
soft-toned and silvery, as a lady’s voice should be, thrilled in
Wilford’s ear, awaking a strange feeling of disquiet, as if the world
would never again be quite the same to him that it was before he met
that fair young girl now passing from the room.

Mrs. Woodhull saw that he was interested. It was time he was settled in
life. With the exception of wealth and family position, he could not
find a better wife than Katy, and she would do what she could to bring
the marriage about. Accordingly, having first gained the preceptress’s
consent, Katy was taken home with her to dinner. And this was how
Wilford Cameron came to know little Katy Lennox, the simple-hearted
child, who blushed so prettily when first presented to him, and blushed
again when he praised her recitations, but who after that forgot the
difference in their social relations, laughing and chatting as merrily
in his presence as if she had been alone with Mrs. Woodhull. This was
the great charm to Wilford. Katy was so wholly unconscious of herself or
what he might think of her, that he could not sit in judgment upon her,
and he watched her eagerly as she sported, and flashed, and sparkled,
filling the room with sunshine, and putting to rout the entire regiment
of blues which had been for months harassing the city-bred young man.

If there was any one thing in which Katy excelled, it was music, both
vocal and instrumental, a taste for which had been developed very early,
and fostered by Morris Grant, who had seen that his cousin had every
advantage which Silverton could afford. Great pains had been given to
her style of playing while in Canandaigua, so that as a performer upon
the piano she had few rivals in the seminary, while her bird-like voice
filled every nook and corner of the room, where, on the night after her
visit to Mrs. Woodhull, a select exhibition was held, Katy shining as
the one bright star, and winning golden laurels for beauty, grace, and
perfect self-possession, from others than Wilford Cameron, who was one
of the invited auditors.

Juno herself could not equal that, he thought, as Katy’s fingers flew
over the keys, executing a brilliant and difficult piece without a
single mistake, and receiving the applause of the spectators easily,
naturally, as if it were an every day occurrence. But when by request
she sang “Comin’ through the Rye,” Wilford’s heart, if he had any
before, was wholly gone, and he dreamed of Katy Lennox that night,
wondering all the ensuing day how his haughty mother would receive that
young school-girl as her daughter, wife of the son whose bride she
fancied must be equal to the first lady in the land. And if Katy were
not now equal she could be made so, Wilford thought, wondering if
Canandaigua were the best place for her, and if she would consent to
receive a year or two years’ tuition from _him_, provided her family
were poor. He did not know as they were, but he would ask, and he did,
feeling a pang of regret when he heard to some extent how Katy was
circumstanced. Mrs. Woodhull had never been to Silverton, and so she did
not know of Uncle Ephraim, and his old-fashioned sister; but she knew
that they were poor—that some relation sent Katy to school; and she
frankly told Wilford so, adding, as she detected the shadow on his face,
that one could not expect everything, and that a girl like Katy was not
found every day. Wilford admitted all this, growing more and more
infatuated, until at last he consented to join the traveling party,
provided Katy joined it too, and when on the morning of their departure
for the Falls he seated himself beside her in the car, he could not well
have been happier, unless she had really been his wife, as he so much
wished she was.

It was a most delightful trip, and Wilford was better satisfied with
himself than he had been before in years. His past life was not all free
from error, and there were many sad memories haunting him, but with Katy
at his side, seeing what he saw, admiring what he admired, and doing
what he bade her do, he gave the bygones to the wind, feeling only an
intense desire to clasp the young girl in his arms and bear her away to
some spot where with her pure fresh life all his own he could begin the
world anew, and retrieve the past which he had lost. This was when he
was with Katy. Away from her he could remember the difference in their
position, and prudential motives began to make themselves heard. Never
but once had he taken an important step without consulting his mother,
and the trouble in which that had involved him warned him to be more
cautious a second time. And this was why Katy came back to Silverton
unengaged, leaving her heart with Wilford Cameron, who would first seek
advice from his mother ere committing himself by word. He had seen the
white-haired man waiting for her when the train stopped at Silverton,
but standing there as he did, with his silvery locks parted in the
centre, and shading his honest, open face, Uncle Ephraim looked like
some patriarch of old rather than a man to be despised, and Wilford felt
only respect for him until he saw Katy’s arms wound so lovingly around
his neck as she called him Uncle Eph. That sight grated harshly, and
Wilford felt glad that he was not bound to her by any pledge. Very
curiously he looked after the couple, witnessing the meeting between
Katy and old Whiting, and guessing rightly that the corn-colored vehicle
was the one sent to transport Katy home. He was very moody for the
remainder of the route between Silverton and Albany, where he parted
with his Canandaigua friends, they going on to the westward, while he
stopped all night in Albany, where he had some business to transact for
his father.

He was intending to tell his mother everything, except that he paid
Katy’s bills. He would rather keep that to himself, as it might shock
his mother’s sense of propriety and make her think less of Katy; so
after dinner was over, and they had returned to the parlor, he opened
the subject by asking her to guess what took him off so suddenly with
Mrs. Woodhull.

The mother did not know—unless—and a strange light gleamed in her eye,
as she asked if it were some girl.

“Yes, mother, it was,” and without any reservation Wilford frankly told
the story of his interest in Katy Lennox.

He admitted that she was poor and unaccustomed to society, but he loved
her more than words could express.

“Not as I loved Genevra,” he said, and there came a look of intense pain
into his eyes as he continued. “That was the passion of a boy of
nineteen, stimulated by secrecy, but this is the love of a mature man of
thirty, who feels that he is capable of judging for himself.”

In Wilford’s voice there was a tone warning the mother that opposition
would only feed the flame, and so she offered none directly, but heard
him patiently to the end, and then quietly questioned him of Katy and
her family, especially the last. What did he know of it? Was it one to
detract from the Cameron line, kept untarnished so long? Were the
relatives such as he never need blush to own even if they came there
into their drawing-rooms as they would come if Katy did?

Wilford thought of Uncle Ephraim as he had seen him upon the platform at
Silverton, and could scarcely repress a smile as he pictured to himself
his mother’s consternation at beholding that man in her drawing-room.
But he did not mention the deacon, though he acknowledged that Katy’s
family friends were not exactly the Cameron style. But Katy was young:
Katy could be easily moulded, and once away from her old associates, his
mother and sisters could make of her what they pleased.

“I understand, then, that if you marry her you do not marry the family,”
and in the handsome matronly face there was an expression from which
Katy would have shrunk, could she have seen it and understood its
meaning.

“No, I do not marry the family,” Wilford rejoined emphatically, but the
expression of his face was different from his mother’s, for where she
thought only of herself, not hesitating to trample on all Katy’s love of
home and friends, Wilford remembered Katy, thinking how he would make
amends for separating her wholly from her home as he surely meant to do
if he should win her. “Did I tell you,” he continued, “that her father
was a judge? She must be well connected on that side. And now, what
shall I do?” he asked playfully. “Shall I propose to Katy Lennox, or
shall I try to forget her?”

“I should not do either,” was Mrs. Cameron’s reply, for she knew that
trying to forget her was the surest way of keeping her in mind, and she
dared not confess to him how determined she was that Katy Lennox should
never be her daughter if she could prevent it.

If she could not, then as a lady and a woman of policy, she should make
the most of it, receiving Katy kindly and doing her best to educate her
up to the Cameron ideas of style and manner.

“Let matters take their course for awhile,” she said, “and see how you
feel after a little. We are going to Newport the first of August, and
perhaps you may find somebody there infinitely superior to this Katy
Lennox. That’s your father’s ring. He is earlier than usual to-night. I
would not tell him yet, till you are more decided,” and the lady went
hastily out into the hall to meet her husband.

A moment more and the elder Cameron appeared—a short, square-built man,
with a face seamed with lines of care and eyes much like Wilford’s, save
that the shaggy eyebrows gave them a different expression. He was very
glad to see his son, though he merely shook his hand, asking what
nonsense took him off around the Lakes with Mrs. Woodhull, and wondering
if women were never happy unless they were chasing after fashion. The
elder Cameron was evidently not of his wife’s way of thinking, but she
let him go on until he was through, and then, with the most unruffled
mien, suggested that his dinner would be cold. He was accustomed to that
and so he did not mind, but he hurried through his lonely meal to-night,
for Wilford was home, and the father was always happier when he knew his
son was in the house. Contrary to his usual custom, he spent the short
summer evening in the parlor, talking with Wilford on various items of
business, and thus preventing any further conversation concerning Katy
Lennox. It took but a short time for Wilford to fall back into his old
way of living, passing a few hours of each day in his office, driving
with his mother, sparring with his imperious sister Juno, and teasing
his blue sister Bell, but never after that first night breathing a word
to any one of Katy Lennox. And still Katy was not forgotten, as his
mother sometimes believed. On the contrary, the very silence he kept
concerning her increased his passion, until he began seriously to
contemplate a trip to Silverton. The family’s removal to Newport,
however, diverted his attention for a little, making him decide to wait
and see what Newport might have in store for him. But Newport was dull
this season, though Juno and Bell both found ample scope for their
different powers of attraction, and his mother was always happy when
showing off her children and knowing that they were appreciated, but
with Wilford it was different. Listless and taciturn, he went through
with the daily routine, wondering how he had ever found happiness there,
and finally, at the close of the season, casting all policy and prudence
aside, he wrote to Katy Lennox that he was coming to Silverton on his
way home, and that he presumed he should have no difficulty in finding
his way to the farm-house.




                              CHAPTER IV.
                        PREPARING FOR THE VISIT.


Katy had waited very anxiously for a letter from Wilford, and as the
weeks went by and nothing came, a shadow had fallen upon her spirits and
the family missed something from her ringing laugh and frolicsome ways,
while she herself wondered at the change which had come over everything.
Even the light household duties she used to enjoy so much, were irksome
to her and she enjoyed nothing except going with Uncle Ephraim into the
fields where she could sit alone while he worked nearby, or to ride with
Morris as she sometimes did when he made his round of calls. She was not
as good as she used to be, she thought, and with a view of making
herself better she took to teaching in Morris and Helen’s Sunday-School,
greatly to the distress of Aunt Betsy, who groaned bitterly when both
her nieces adopted the “Episcopal quirks,” forsaking entirely the house
where, Sunday after Sunday, her old-fashioned leghorn, with its faded
ribbon of green was seen, bending down in the humble worship which God
so much approves. But teaching in Sunday-school, taken by itself, could
not make Katy better, and the old restlessness remained until the
morning when, sitting on the grass beneath the apple-tree, she read that
Wilford Cameron was coming; then everything was changed and Katy never
forgot the brightness of that day when the robins sang so merrily above
her head, and all nature seemed to sympathize with her joy. There was no
shadow around her now, nothing but hopeful sunshine, and with a bounding
step she sought out Helen to tell her the good news. Helen’s first
remark, however, was a chill upon her spirits.

“Wilford Cameron coming here? What will he think of us, we are so unlike
him?”

This was the first time Katy had seriously considered the difference
between her surroundings and those of Wilford Cameron, or how it might
affect him. But Aunt Betsy, who had never dreamed of anything like
Wilford’s home, comforted her, telling her, “if he was any kind of a
chap he wouldn’t be looking round, and if he did, who cared? She guessed
they were as good as he, and as much thought of by the neighbors.”

Wilford’s letter had been delayed so that the morrow was the day
appointed for his coming, and never was there a busier afternoon at the
farm-house than the one which followed the receipt of the letter.
Everything not spotlessly clean before was made so now, Aunt Betsy, in
her petticoat and short gown, going down upon her knees to scrub the
back door-sill, as if the city guest were expected to notice that. On
Aunt Hannah and Mrs. Lennox devolved the duty of preparing for the wants
of the inner man, while Helen and Katy bent their energies to
beautifying their home and making the most of their plain furniture.

The “spare bedroom,” kept for company, was only large enough to admit
the high-post bed, a single chair, and the old-fashioned wash-stand,
with the hole in the top for the bowl, and a drawer beneath for towels;
and the two girls held a consultation as to whether it would not be
better to dispense with the parlor altogether, and give that room to
their visitor. But this was vetoed by Aunt Betsy, who, having finished
the back door-sill, had now come round to the front, and with her
scrubbing-brush in one hand and her saucer of sand in the other, held
forth upon the foolishness of the girls.

“Of course, if they had a beau, they’d want a t’other room, else where
would they do their sparkin’?”

That settled it. The parlor must remain as it was, Katy said, and Aunt
Betsy went on with her scouring, while Helen and Katy consulted together
how to make the huge feather bed more like the mattresses to which
Wilford must be accustomed. Helen’s mind being the more suggestive,
solved the problem first, and a large comfortable was brought from the
box in the garret and folded carefully over the bed, which, thus
hardened and flattened, “seemed like a mattress,” Katy said, for she
tried it, feeling quite well satisfied with the room when it was
finished. And certainly it was not uninviting, with its strip of bright
carpeting upon the floor, its vase of flowers upon the stand, and its
white-fringed curtain sweeping back from the narrow window.

“I’d like to sleep here myself,” was Katy’s comment, while Helen offered
no opinion, but followed her sister into the yard, where they were to
sweep the grass and prune the early September flowers.

This afforded Aunt Betsy a chance to reconnoitre and criticise, which
last she did unsparingly.

“What have them children been doin’ to that bed? Put on a quilt, as I’m
alive! It would break my back to lie there, and this _Carmon_ is none of
the youngest, accordin’ to their tell; nigh onto thirty, if not turned.
It will make his bones ache, of course. I am glad I know better than to
treat visitors that way. The comforter may stay, but I’ll be bound I’ll
make it softer!” And stealing up the stairs, Aunt Betsy brought down a
second feather bed, much lighter than the one already on, but still
large enough to suggest the thought of smothering. This she had made
herself, intending it as a part of Katy’s “setting out,” should she ever
marry; and as things now seemed tending that way, it was only right, she
thought, that Mr. Carmon, as she called him, should begin to have the
benefit of it. Accordingly _two_ beds, instead of one, were placed
beneath the comfortable, which Aunt Betsy permitted to remain.

“I’m mighty feared they’ll find me out,” she said, taking great pains in
the making of her bed, and succeeding so well that when her task was
done there was no perceptible difference between Helen’s bed and her
own, except that the latter was a few inches higher than the former, and
more nearly resembled a pincushion in shape.

There was but little chance for Aunt Betsy to be detected, for Helen,
supposing the room to be in order, had dismissed it from her mind, and
was training a rose over a frame, while Katy was on her way to Linwood
in quest of various little things which Mrs. Lennox considered
indispensable to the entertainment of a man like Wilford Cameron. Morris
was out on his piazza, enjoying the fine prospect he had of the sun
shining across the pond, on the Silverton hill, and just gilding the top
of the little church nestled in the valley. At sight of Katy he rose and
greeted her with the kind, brotherly manner now habitual with him, for
he had learned to listen quite calmly while Katy talked to him, as she
often did, of Wilford Cameron, never trying to conceal from him how
anxious she was for some word of remembrance, and often asking if he
thought Mr. Cameron would ever write to her. It was hard at first for
Morris to listen, and harder still to keep back the passionate words of
love trembling on his lips—to refrain from asking her to take him in
Cameron’s stead—him who had loved her so long. But Morris had kept
silence, and as the weeks went by there came insensibly into his heart a
hope, or rather conviction, that Wilford Cameron had forgotten the
little girl who might in time turn to him, gladdening his home just as
she did every spot where her fairy footsteps trod. Morris did not fully
know that he was hugging this fond dream until he felt the keen pang
which cut like a dissector’s knife as Katy, turning her bright, eager
face up to him, whispered softly, “He’s coming to-morrow—he surely is; I
have his letter to tell me so.”

Morris could not see the sunshine upon the distant hills, although it
lay there just as purple and warm as it had a moment before. There was
an instant of darkness, in which the hills, the pond, the sun-setting,
and Katy seemed a great way off to Morris, trying so hard to be calm,
and mentally asking for help to do so. But Katy’s hat, which she swung
in her hand, had become entangled in the vines encircling one of the
pillars of the piazza, and so she did not notice him until all traces of
his agitation were past, and he could talk with her concerning Wilford;
then playfully lifting her basket he asked what she had come to get.

This was not the first time the great house had rendered a like service
to the little house, and so Katy did not blush when she explained that
her mother wanted Morris’s forks, and salt-cellars, and spoons, and
would he be kind enough to bring the caster over himself, and come to
dinner to-morrow at two o’clock, and would he go for Mr. Cameron? The
forks, and salt-cellars, and spoons, and caster were cheerfully
promised, while Morris consented to go for the guest; and then Katy came
to the rest of her errand, the part distasteful to her, inasmuch as it
concerned Uncle Ephraim—honest, unsophisticated Uncle Ephraim, _who
would come to the table in his shirt sleeves_! This was the burden of
her grief—the one thing she dreaded most, because she knew how such an
act was looked upon by Mr. Cameron who, never having lived in the
country a day in his life, except as he was either guest or traveler,
could not make due allowance for these little departures from
refinement, so obnoxious to people of his training.

“What is it, Katy?” Morris asked, as he saw how she hesitated, and
guessed her errand was not all told.

“I hope you will not think me foolish or wicked,” Katy began, her eyes
filling with tears, as she felt that she might be doing Uncle Ephraim a
wrong by admitting that in any way he could be improved. “I certainly
love Uncle Ephraim dearly, and _I_ do not mind his ways, but—but—Mr.
Cameron may—that is, oh, Cousin Morris, _did_ you ever notice how Uncle
Ephraim will persist in coming to the table in his shirt sleeves?”

“_Persist_ is hardly the word to use,” Morris replied, smiling
comically, as he readily understood Katy’s misgivings. “Persist would
imply his having been often remonstrated with for that breach of
etiquette; whereas I doubt whether the idea that it was not in strict
accordance with politeness was ever suggested to him.”

“Maybe not,” Katy answered. “It was never necessary till now, and I feel
so disturbed, for I want Mr. Cameron to like him, and if he does that I
am sure he won’t.”

“Why do you think so?” Morris asked, and Katy replied, “He is so
particular, and was so very angry at a little hotel between Lakes George
and Champlain, where we took our dinner before going on the boat. There
was a man along—a real good-natured man, too, so kind to everybody—and,
as the day was warm, he carried his coat on his arm, and sat down to the
table right opposite me. Mr. Cameron was _so_ indignant, and said such
harsh things, which the man heard I am sure, for he put on his coat
directly, and I saw him afterward on the boat, sweating like rain, and
looking so sorry, as if he had been guilty of something wrong. I am
sure, though, he had not?”

This last was spoken interrogatively, and Morris replied: “There is
nothing wrong or wicked in going without one’s coat. Everything depends
upon the circumstances under which it is done. For _me_ to appear at
table in my shirt sleeves would be very rude, but for an old man like
Uncle Ephraim to do so is a very different thing. Still, Mr. Cameron may
see from another standpoint. But I would not distress myself. That love
is not worth much which would think the less of you for anything _outré_
which Uncle Ephraim may do. If Mr. Cameron cannot stand the test of
seeing your relatives as they are, he is not worth the long face you are
wearing,” and Morris pinched her cheek playfully.

“Yes, I know,” Katy replied, “but if you only could manage Uncle Eph, I
should be so glad.”

Morris had little hope of breaking a habit of years, but he promised to
try if an opportunity should occur, and as Mrs. Hull, the housekeeper,
had by this time gathered up the articles required for the morrow,
Morris took the basket in his own hands and went with Katy across the
fields.

“God bless you, Katy, and may Mr. Cameron’s visit bring you as much
happiness as you anticipate,” he said, as he set her basket upon the
doorstep and turned back without entering the house.

Katy noticed the peculiar tone of his voice, and again there swept over
her the same thrill she had felt when Morris first said to her, “And did
Katy like this Mr. Cameron?” but so far was she from guessing the truth
that she only feared she might have displeased him by what she had said
of Uncle Ephraim. Perhaps she _had_ wronged him, she thought, and the
good old man, resting from his hard day’s toil, in his accustomed chair,
with not only his coat, but his vest and boots cast aside, little
guessed what prompted the caresses which Katy lavished upon him, sitting
in his lap and parting his snowy hair, as if thus she would make amends
for any injury done. Little Katy-did he called her, looking fondly into
her bright, pretty face, and thinking how terrible it would be to see
that face shadowed with pain and care. Somehow, of late, Uncle Ephraim
was always thinking of such a calamity as more than possible for Katy,
and when that night she knelt beside him, his voice was full of pleading
earnestness as he prayed that God would keep them all in safety, and
bring to none of them more grief or pain than was necessary to fit them
for himself. And Katy, listening to him, remembered the talk down in the
meadow, when she sat on the rock beneath the butternut tree. But the
world, while it held Wilford Cameron, as he seemed to her now, was too
full of joy for her to dread what the future might have in store for
her, and so she arose from her knees, thinking only how long it would be
before to-morrow noon, wondering if Wilford would surely be there next
time their evening prayers were said, and if he would notice Uncle
Ephraim’s shocking grammar!




                               CHAPTER V.
                            WILFORD’S VISIT.


Wilford had made the last change of cars, and when he stopped again it
would be at Silverton. He did not expect any one to meet him, but as he
remembered the man whom he had seen greeting Katy, he thought it not
unlikely that he might be there now, laughing to himself as he pictured
his mother’s horror, could she see him riding along in the corn-colored
vehicle which Uncle Ephraim drove. But that vehicle was safe at home
beneath the shed, while Uncle Ephraim was laying a stone wall upon the
huckleberry hill, and the handsome carriage waiting at Silverton depot
was certainly unexceptionable; while in the young man who, as the train
stopped and Wilford stepped out upon the platform, came to meet him,
asking if he were Mr. Cameron, Wilford recognized the true gentleman,
and his spirits rose at once as Morris said to him, “I am Miss Lennox’s
cousin, deputed by her to take charge of you for a time.”

Wilford had heard of Dr. Morris Grant and of his kindness to poor little
Jamie, who died in Paris; he had heard too that his proud sister Juno
had tried her powers of coquetry in vain upon the grave American; but he
had no suspicion that his new acquaintance was the one until Morris
mentioned having met his family in France and inquired after their
welfare.

After that the conversation became very familiar, and the ride seemed so
short that Wilford was surprised when, as they turned a corner in the
sandy road, Morris pointed to the farm-house, saying: “We are almost
there—that is the place.”

“_That!_” and Wilford’s voice indicated his disappointment, for in all
his mental pictures of Katy Lennox’s home he had never imagined anything
like this.

Large, rambling and weird-like, with something lofty and imposing, just
because it was so ancient, was the house he had in his mind, and he
could not conceal his chagrin as his eye took in the small, low
building, with its high windows and tiny panes of glass, paintless and
blindless, standing there alone among the hills. Morris understood it
perfectly; but without seeming to notice it, remarked, “It is the oldest
house probably in the country, and should be invaluable on that account.
I think we Americans are too fond of change and too much inclined to
throw aside all that reminds us of the past. Now I like the farm-house
just because it is old and unpretentious.”

“Yes, certainly,” Wilford answered, looking ruefully around him at the
stone wall, half tumbled down, the tall well-sweep, and the patch of
sun-flowers in the garden, with Aunt Betsy bending behind them, picking
tomatoes for dinner, and shading her eyes with her hand to look at him
as he drove up.

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.

Fashionable dress would improve her very much, he thought, turning with
a feeling of relief to Katy, whom nothing could disfigure, and who was
now watching the door eagerly for the entrance of her mother. That lady
had spent a good deal of time at her toilet, and she came in at last,
flurried, fidgety, and very red, both from exercise and the bright-hued
ribbons streaming from her cap and sadly at variance with the color of
the dress. Wilford noticed the discrepancy at once, and noticed too how
little style there was about the nervous woman greeting him so
deferentially, and evidently regarding him as something infinitely
superior to herself. Wilford had looked with indifference on Helen, but
it would take a stronger word to express his opinion of the mother.
Morris, who remained to dinner, was in the parlor now, and in his
presence Wilford felt more at ease, more as if he had found an affinity.
Uncle Ephraim was not there, having eaten his bowl of milk and gone back
to his stone wall, so that upon Morris devolved the duties of host, and
he courteously led the way to the little dining-room, where the table
was loaded with the good things Aunt Hannah had prepared, burning and
browning her wrinkled face, which nevertheless smiled pleasantly upon
the stranger presented as Mr. Cameron.

About Aunt Hannah there was something naturally lady-like, and Wilford
recognized it at once; but when it came to Aunt Betsy, of whom he had
never heard, he felt for a moment as if by being there in such
promiscuous company he had somehow fallen from the Camerons’ high
estate. By way of pleasing the girls and doing honor to their guest,
Aunt Betsy had donned her very best attire, wearing the slate-colored
pongee dress, bought twenty years before, and actually sporting a set of
Helen’s cast-off hoops, which being too large for the dimensions of her
scanty skirt, gave her anything but the graceful appearance she
intended.

“Oh, auntie!” was Katy’s involuntary exclamation, while Helen bit her
lip with vexation, for the _hoop_ had been an afterthought to Aunt Betsy
just before going in to dinner.

But the good old lady never dreamed of shocking anyone with her attempts
at fashion; and curtsying very low to Mr. Cameron, she hoped for a
better acquaintance, and then took her seat at the table, just where
each movement could be distinctly seen by Wilford, scanning her so
intently as scarcely to hear the reverent words with which Morris asked
a blessing upon themselves and the food so abundantly prepared. They
could hardly have gotten through that first dinner without Morris, who
adroitly led the conversation into channels which he knew would interest
Mr. Cameron, and divert his mind from what was passing around him, and
so the dinner proceeded quietly enough, Wilford discovering, ere its
close, that Mrs. Lennox had really some pretensions to a lady, while
Helen’s dress and collar ceased to be obnoxious, as he watched the play
of her fine features and saw her eyes kindle as she took a modest part
in the conversation when it turned on books and literature.

Meanwhile Katy kept very silent, but when, after dinner was over and
Morris was gone, she went with Wilford down to the shore of the pond,
her tongue was loosed, and he found again the little fairy who had so
bewitched him a few weeks before. And yet there was a load upon his
heart, a shadow upon his brow, for he knew now that between Katy’s
family and his there was a social gulf which never could be crossed by
either party. He might bear Katy over, it was true, but would she not
look longingly back to her humble home, and might he not sometimes be
greatly chagrined by the sudden appearing of some one of this low-bred
family who did not seem to realize how ignorant they were, or how far
below him in the social scale? Poor Wilford! he winced and shivered when
he thought of Aunt Betsy, in her antiquated pongee, and remembered that
she was a near relative of the little maiden sporting so playfully
around him, stealing his heart away in spite of his family pride, and
making him more deeply in love than ever. It was very pleasant down by
the pond, and Wilford kept Katy there until the sun was going down and
they heard in the distance the tinkle of a bell as the deacon’s cows
plodded slowly homeward. Supper was waiting for them, and with his
appetite sharpened by his walk, Wilford found no cause of complaint
against Aunt Hannah’s viands, though he smiled mentally as he accepted
the piece of apple pie Aunt Betsy offered him, saying, by way of
recommendation, that “she made the crust but _Catherine_ peeled and
sliced the apples.”

The deacon had not returned from his work, and Wilford did not see him
until he came suddenly upon him, seated in the wood-shed door, resting
after the labor of the day. “The young man was welcome to Silverton,” he
said, “but he must excuse him from visitin’ much that night, for the
cows was to milk and the chores to do, as he never kep’ no boy.” The
“chores” were done at last, just as the clock pointed to half-past
eight, the hour for family worship. Unaccustomed as Wilford was to such
things, he felt the influence of the deacon’s voice as he read from the
word of God, and involuntarily found himself kneeling when Katy knelt,
noticing the deacon’s grammar it is true, but still listening patiently
to the lengthy prayer, which included him together with the rest of
mankind.

There was no chance of seeing Katy alone, that night, and so full two
hours before his usual custom Wilford retired to the little room to
which the deacon conducted him, saying, as he put down the lamp, “You’ll
find it pretty snug quarters, I guess, for such a close, muggy night as
this.”

And truly they were snug quarters, Wilford thought, as he surveyed the
dimensions of the room; but there was no alternative, and a few moments
found him in the centre of the two feather beds, neither Helen nor Katy
having discovered the addition made by Aunt Betsy, and which came near
being the death of the New York guest. To sleep was impossible, and
never for a moment did Wilford lose his consciousness or forget to
accuse himself of being an idiot for coming into that heathenish
neighborhood after a wife when in New York there were so many girls
ready and waiting for him.

“I’ll go back to-morrow morning,” he said, striking a match he consulted
his Railway Guide to find when the first train passed Silverton, feeling
comforted to know that only a few hours intervened between him and
freedom.

But alas for Wilford! He was but a man, subject to man’s caprices, and
when next morning he met Katy Lennox, looking in her light muslin as
pure and fair as the white blossoms twined in her wavy hair, his
resolution began to waver. Perhaps there was a decent hotel in
Silverton; he would inquire of Dr. Grant; at all events he would not
take the first train, though he might the next; and so he stayed, eating
fried apples and beefsteak, but forgetting to criticise, in his
appreciation of the rich thick cream poured into his coffee, and the
sweet, golden butter, which melted in soft waves upon the flaky rolls.
Again Uncle Ephraim was absent, having gone to mill before Wilford left
his room, nor was he visible to the young man until after dinner, for
Wilford did not go home, but drove instead with Katy in the carriage
which Morris sent round, excusing himself from coming on the plea of
being too busy, but saying he would join them at tea, if possible.
Wilford’s mind was not yet fully made up, so he concluded to remain
another day and see more of Katy’s family. Accordingly, after dinner, he
bent his energies to cultivating them all, from Helen down to Aunt
Betsy, who proved the most transparent of the four. Arrayed again in the
pongee, but this time without the hoop, she came into the parlor,
bringing her calico patch-work, which she informed him was pieced in the
“herrin’ bone pattern” and intended for Katy; telling him further, that
the feather bed on which he slept was also a part of “Catherine’s
setting out,” and was made from feathers she picked herself, showing him
as proof a mark upon her arm, left there by the gray goose, which had
proved a little refractory when she tried to draw a stocking over its
head.

Wilford groaned and Katy’s chance for being Mrs. Cameron was growing
constantly less and less as he saw more and more how vast was the
difference between the Barlows and himself. Helen, he acknowledged, was
passable, though she was not one whom he could ever introduce into New
York society; and he was wondering how Katy chanced to be so unlike the
rest, when Uncle Ephraim came up from the meadow, and announced himself
as ready now to _visit_, apologizing for his apparent neglect, and
seeming so absolutely to believe that his company was desirable, that
Wilford felt amused, wondering again what Juno, or even Mark Ray, would
think of the rough old man, sitting with his chair tipped back against
the wall, and going occasionally to the door to relieve himself of his
tobacco juice, for chewing was one of the deacon’s weaknesses. His pants
were faultlessly clean, and his vest was buttoned nearly up to his
throat, but his coat was hanging on a nail out by the kitchen door, and,
to Katy’s distress and Wilford’s horror, he sat among them in his shirt
sleeves, all unconscious of harm or of the disquiet awakened in the
bosom of the young man, who on that point was foolishly fastidious, and
who showed by his face how much he was annoyed. Not even the presence of
Morris, who came about tea time, was of any avail to lift the cloud from
his brow, and he seemed moody and silent until supper was announced.
This was the first opportunity Morris had had of trying his powers of
persuasion upon the deacon, and now, at a hint from Katy, he said to him
in an aside, as they were passing into the dining-room: “Suppose, Uncle
Ephraim, you put on your coat for once. It is better than coming to the
table so.”

“Pooh,” was Uncle Ephraim’s innocent rejoinder, spoken loudly enough for
Wilford to hear, “I shan’t catch cold, for I am used to it; besides
that, I never could stand the racket this hot weather.”

In his simplicity he did not even suspect Morris’s motive, but imputed
it wholly to concern for his health. And so Wilford Cameron found
himself seated next to a man who wilfully trampled upon all rules of
etiquette, shocking him in his most sensitive points, and making him
thoroughly disgusted with the country and country people generally. All
but Morris and Katy—he _did_ make an exception in their favor, leaning
most to Morris, whom he admired more and more, as he became better
acquainted with him, wondering how he could content himself to settle
down quietly in Silverton, when he would surely die if compelled to live
there for a week. Something like this he said to Dr. Grant, when that
evening they sat together in the handsome parlor at Linwood, for Morris
kindly invited him to spend the night with him.

“I stay in Silverton, first, because I think I can do more good here
than elsewhere, and secondly, because I really like the country and the
country people; for, strange and uncouth as they may seem to you, who
never lived among them, they have kinder, truer hearts beating beneath
their rough exteriors, than are often in the city.”

This was Morris’s reply, and in the conversation which ensued Wilford
Cameron caught glimpses of a nobler, higher phase of manhood than he had
thought existed, feeling an unbounded respect for one who, because he
believed it to be his duty, was, as it seemed to him, wasting his life
among people who could not appreciate his character, though they might
idolize the man. But this did not reconcile Wilford one whit the more to
Silverton. Uncle Ephraim had completed the work commenced by the two
feather beds, and at breakfast, next morning, he announced his intention
of returning to New York that day. To this Morris offered no objection,
but asked to be remembered to the mother and sisters, and then invited
Wilford to stop altogether at Linwood when he came again to Silverton.

“Thank you; but it is hardly probable that I shall be here very soon,”
Wilford replied, adding, as he met the peculiar glance of Morris’s eye,
“I found Miss Katy a delightful traveling acquaintance, and on my way
from Newport thought I would renew it and see a little of rustic life.”

Poor Katy! how her heart would have ached could she have heard those
words and understood their meaning, just as Morris did, feeling a rising
indignation for the man with whom he could not be absolutely angry, he
was so self-possessed, so pleasant and gentlemanly, while better than
all, was he not virtually giving Katy up? and if he did might she not
turn at last to him?

These were Morris’s thoughts as he walked with Wilford across the fields
to the farm-house, where Katy met them with her sunniest smile, singing
to them, at Wilford’s request, her sweetest song, and making him half
wish he could revoke his hasty decision and tarry a little longer. But
it was now too late for that, the carriage which would take him to the
depot was already on its way from Linwood; and when the song was ended
he told her of his intentions to leave on the next train, feeling a pang
when he saw how the blood left her cheek and lip, and then came surging
back as she said timidly, “Why need you leave so soon?”

“I have already outstayed my time. I thought of going yesterday, and my
partner, Mr. Ray, will be expecting me,” Wilford replied, laying his
hand upon Katy’s hair, while Morris and Helen stole quietly from the
room.

Thus left to himself, Wilford continued, “Maybe I’ll come again
sometime. Would you like to have me?”

“Yes,” and Katy’s blue eyes were lifted pleadingly to the young man, who
had never loved her so well as at that very moment when resolving to
cast her off.

For a moment Wilford was strongly tempted to throw all pride aside, and
ask that young girl to be his; but thoughts of his mother, of Juno and
Bell, and more than all, thoughts of Uncle Ephraim and his sister Betsy,
arose in time to prevent it, and so he only kissed her forehead
caressingly as he said good-bye, telling her that he should not soon
forget his visit to Silverton, and then, as the carriage drove up, going
out to where the remainder of the family were standing together and
commenting upon his sudden departure.

It was not sudden, he said, trying to explain. He really had thought
seriously of going yesterday, and feeling that he had something to atone
for, he tried to be unusually gracious as he shook their hands, thanking
them for their kindness, but seeming wholly oblivious to Aunt Betsy’s
remark that “she hoped to see him again, if not at Silverton, in New
York, where she wanted dreadfully to visit, but never had on account of
the ’bominable prices charged to the taverns, and she hadn’t no
acquaintances there.”

This was Aunt Betsy’s parting remark, and, after Katy, Aunt Betsy liked
Wilford Cameron better than any one of the group which watched him as he
drove from their door. Aunt Hannah thought him too much stuck up for
farmers’ folks; Mrs. Lennox, whose ambition would have accounted him a
most desirable match for her daughter, could not deny that his manner
towards them, though polite in the extreme, was that of a superior to
people greatly beneath him; while Helen, who saw clearer than the rest,
read him aright, and detected the struggle between his pride and his
love for poor little Katy, whom she found sitting on the floor, just
where Wilford left her standing, her head resting on the chair and her
face hidden in her hands as she sobbed quietly, hardly knowing why she
cried or what to answer when Helen asked what was the matter.

“It was so queer in him to go so soon,” she said; “just as if he were
offended about something.”

“Never mind, Katy,” Helen said, soothingly. “If he cares for you he will
come back again. He could not stay here always, of course; and I must
say I respect him for attending to his business, if he has any. He has
been gone from home for weeks, you know.”

This was Helen’s reasoning; but it did not comfort Katy, whose face
looked white and sad, as she moved listlessly about the house, almost
crying again when she heard in the distance the whistle of the train
which was to carry Wilford Cameron away and end his first visit to
Silverton.




                              CHAPTER VI.
                             IN THE SPRING.


Katy Lennox had been very sick, and the bed where Wilford slept had
stood in the parlor during the long weeks while the obstinate fever ran
its course; but she was better now, and sat nearly all day before the
fire, sometimes trying to crochet a little, and again turning over the
books which Morris had bought to interest her—Morris, the kind
physician, who had attended her so faithfully, never leaving her while
the fever was at its height, unless it was necessary, but staying with
her day and night, watching her symptoms carefully, and praying so
earnestly that she might not die, not, at least, until some token had
been given that again in the better world he should find her, where
partings were unknown and where no Wilford Camerons could contest the
prize with him. Not that he was greatly afraid of Wilford now; that fear
had mostly died away just as the hope had died from Katy’s heart that
she would ever meet him again.

Since the September morning when he left her, she had not heard from him
except once, when in the winter Morris had been to New York, and having
a few hours’ leisure on his hands had called at Wilford’s office,
receiving a most cordial reception, and meeting with Mark Ray, who
impressed him as a man quite as highly cultivated as Wilford, and
possessed of more character and principle. This call was not altogether
of Morris’s seeking, but was made rather with a view to pleasing Katy,
who, when she learned that he was going to New York, had said
inadvertently, “Oh, I do so hope you’ll meet with Mr. Cameron, for then
we shall know that he is neither sick nor dead, as I have sometimes
feared.”

And so Morris had sought his rival, feeling repaid for the effort it had
cost him, when he saw how glad Wilford seemed to meet him. The first
commonplaces over, Wilford inquired for Katy. Was she well, and how was
she occupying her time this winter?

“Both Helen and Katy are pupils of mine,” Morris replied, “reciting
their lessons to me every day when the weather will admit of their
crossing the fields to Linwood. We have often wondered what had become
of you, that you did not even let us know of your safe arrival home,” he
added, looking Wilford fully in the eye, and rather enjoying his
confusion as he tried to apologize.

He had intended writing, but an unusual amount of business had occupied
his time. “Mark will tell you how busy I was,” and he turned appealingly
to his partner, in whose expressive eyes Morris read that Silverton was
not unknown to him.

But if Wilford had told him anything derogatory of the farm-house or its
inmates, it did not appear in Mr. Ray’s manner, as he replied that Mr.
Cameron had been very busy ever since his return from Silverton, adding,
“From what Cameron tells me of your neighborhood, there must be some
splendid hunting and fishing there, and I had last fall half a mind to
try it.”

This time there was something comical in the eyes turned so
mischievously upon Wilford, who colored scarlet for an instant, but soon
recovered his composure, and invited Morris home with him to dinner.

“I shall not take a refusal,” he said, as Morris began to decline.
“Mother and the young ladies will be delighted to see you again. Mark
will go with us, of course.”

There was something so hearty in Wilford’s invitation that Morris did
not again object, and two hours later found him in the drawing-room at
No.—— Fifth Avenue, receiving the friendly greetings of Mrs. Cameron and
her daughters, each of whom vied with the other in their polite
attentions to him.

Morris did not regret having accepted Wilford’s invitation to dinner, as
by this means he saw the home which had well nigh been little Katy
Lennox’s. She would be sadly out of place here with these people, he
thought, and he looked upon all their formality and ceremony, and then
contrasted it with what Katy had been accustomed to. Juno would kill her
outright, was his next mental comment, as he watched that haughty young
lady, dividing her coquetries between himself and Mr. Ray, who being
every way desirable, both in point of family and wealth, was evidently
her favorite. She had colored scarlet when first presented to Dr. Grant,
and her voice had trembled as she took his offered hand, for she
remembered the time when her liking had not been concealed, and was only
withdrawn at the last because she found how useless it was to waste her
affections upon one who did not prize them.

When Wilford first returned from Silverton he had, as a sure means of
forgetting Katy, told his mother and sister something of the farm-house
and its inmates; and Juno, while ridiculing both Helen and Katy, had
felt a fierce pang of jealousy in knowing they were cousins to Morris
Grant, who lived so near that he could, if he liked, see them every day.
In Paris Juno had suspected that somebody was standing between her and
Dr. Grant, and with the quick insight of a smart, bright woman, she
guessed that it was one of these cousins—Katy most likely, her brother
having described Helen as very commonplace,—and for a time she had hated
poor, innocent Katy most cordially for having come between her and the
only man for whom she had ever really cared. Gradually, however, the
feeling died away, but was revived again at sight of Morris Grant, and
at the table she could not forbear saying to him,

“By the way, Dr. Grant, why did you never tell us of those charming
cousins, when you were in Paris? Brother Will describes one of them as a
little water lily, she is so fair and pretty. Katy, I think, is her
name. Wilford, isn’t it Katy Lennox whom you think so beautiful, and
with whom you are more than half in love?”

“Yes, it _is_ Katy,” and Wilford spoke sternly, for he did not like
Juno’s bantering tone, but he could not stop her, and she went on,

“Are they your own cousins, Dr. Grant?”

“No, they are removed from me two or three degrees, their father having
been only my second cousin.”

The fact that Katy Lennox was not nearly enough related to Dr. Grant to
prevent his marrying her if he liked, did not improve Juno’s amiability,
and she continued to ask questions concerning both Katy and Helen, the
latter of whom she persisted in thinking was strong-minded, until Mark
Ray came to the rescue, diverting her attention by adroitly
complimenting her in some way, and so relieving Wilford and Morris, both
of whom were exceedingly annoyed.

“When Will visits Silverton again I mean to go with him,” she said to
Morris at parting, but he did not tell her that such an event would give
him the greatest pleasure. On the contrary, he merely replied,

“If you do you will find plenty of room at Linwood for those four trunks
which I remember seeing in Paris, and your brother will tell you whether
I am a hospitable host or not.”

Biting her lip with chagrin, Juno went back to the drawing-room, while
Morris returned to his hotel, accompanied by Wilford, who passed the
entire evening with him, appearing somewhat constrained, as if there was
something on his mind which he wished to say; but it remained unspoken,
and there was no allusion to Silverton until, as Wilford was leaving, he
said,

“Remember me kindly to the Silverton friends, and say I have not
forgotten them.”

And this was all there was to carry back to Katy, who on the afternoon
of Morris’s return from New York was at Linwood, waiting to pour his tea
and make his toast, she pretended, though the real reason was shining
all over her tell-tale face, which grew so bright and eager when Morris
said,

“I dined at Mr. Cameron’s, Kitty.”

But the brightness gradually faded as Morris described his call and then
repeated Wilford’s message.

“And that was all,” Katy whispered sorrowfully as she beat the damask
cloth softly with her fingers, shutting her lips tightly together to
keep back her disappointment.

When Morris glanced at her again there was a tear on her long eyelashes,
and it dropped upon her cheek, followed by another and another, but he
did not seem to see it, and talked of New York and the fine sights in
Broadway until Katy was able to take part in the conversation.

“Please don’t tell _Helen_ that you saw Wilford,” she said to Morris as
he walked home with her after tea, and that was the only allusion she
made to it, never after that mentioning Wilford’s name or giving any
token of the love still so strong within her heart, and waiting only for
some slight token to waken it again to life and vigor.

This was in the winter, and Katy had been very sick since then, while
Morris had come to believe that Wilford was forgotten, and when, as she
grew stronger, he saw how her eyes sparkled at his coming, and how
impatient she seemed if he was obliged to hurry off, hope whispered that
she would surely be his, and his usually grave face wore a look of
happiness which his patients noticed, feeling themselves better after
one of his cheery visits. Poor Morris! he was little prepared for the
terrible blow in store for him, when one day early in April he started,
as usual, to visit Katy, saying to himself, “If I find her alone,
perhaps I’ll ask if she will come to Linwood this summer;” and Morris
paused a moment beneath a beechwood tree to still the throbbings of his
heart, which beat so fast as he thought of going home from his weary
work and finding Kate there, his little wife—whom he might caress and
love all his affectionate nature would prompt him to. He knew that in
some points she was weak, but then she was very young, and there was
about her so much of purity, innocence, and perfect beauty, that few
men, however strong their intellect, could withstand her, and Morris
felt that in possessing her he should have all he needed to make this
life desirable. She would improve as she grew older, and it would be a
most delightful task to train her into what she was capable of becoming.
Alas for Dr. Morris! He was very near the farm-house now, and there were
only a few minutes between him and the cloud which would darken his
horizon so completely. Katy was alone, sitting up in her pretty dressing
gown of blue, which was so becoming to her pure complexion. Her hair,
which had been all cut away during her long sickness, was growing out
again somewhat darker than before, and lay in rings upon her head,
making her look more childish than ever. But to this Morris did not
object. He liked to have her a child, and he thought he had never seen
her so beautiful as she was this morning, when, with glowing cheek and
dancing eyes, she greeted him as he came in.

“Oh, Dr. Morris!” she began, holding up a letter she had in her hand, “I
am so glad you’ve come! Wilford has not forgotten me. He has written,
and he is coming again, if I will let him; I _am_ so glad! Ain’t you?
Seeing you knew all about it, and never told Helen, I’ll let you read
the letter.”

And she held it toward the young man leaning against the mantel and
panting for the breath which came so heavily.

Something he said apologetically about being _snow blind_, for there was
that day quite a fall of soft spring snow; and then, with a mighty
effort which made his heart quiver with pain, Morris was himself once
more, and took the letter in his hand.

“Perhaps I ought not to read it,” he said, but Katy insisted, and
thinking to himself, “It will cure me sooner perhaps,” he read the few
lines Wilford Cameron had written to his “dear little Katy.”

That was the way he addressed her, going on to say that circumstances
which he could not explain to her had kept him silent ever since he left
her the previous autumn; but through all he never for a moment had
forgotten her, thinking of her the more for the silence he had
maintained. “And now that I have risen above the circumstances,” he
added, in conclusion, “I write to ask if I may come to Silverton again?
If I may, just drop me one word, ‘come,’ and in less than a week I shall
be there. Yours very truly, W. Cameron.”

Morris read the letter through, feeling that every word was separating
him further and further from Katy, to whom he said, “You will answer
this?”

“Yes, oh yes; perhaps to-day.”

“And you will tell him to come?”

“Why,—what else should I tell him?” and Katy’s blue eyes looked
wonderingly at Morris, who hardly knew what he was doing, or why he said
to her next, “Listen to me, Katy. You know why Wilford Cameron comes
here a second time, and what he will probably ask you ere he goes away:
but, Katy, you are not strong enough yet to see him under so exciting
circumstances, and, as your physician, I desire that you tell him to
wait at least three weeks before he comes. Will you do so, Katy?”

“That is just as Helen talked,” Katy answered mournfully. “She said I
was not able.”

“And will you heed us?” Morris asked again, while Katy after a moment
consented, and glad of this respite from what he knew to a certainty
would be, Morris dealt out her medicine, and for an instant felt her
rapid pulse, but did not retain her hand within his own, nor lay his
other upon her head, as he had sometimes done.

He could not do that now, so he hurried away, finding the world into
which he went far different from what it had seemed an hour ago. Then
all was bright and hopeful; but now, alas! a darker night was gathering
round him than any he had ever known, and the patients visited that day
marveled at the whiteness of his face, asking if he were ill. Yes, he
answered them truly, and for two days he was not seen again, but
remained at home alone, where none but his God was witness to what he
suffered; but when the third day came he went again among his sick,
grave, quiet and unchanged in outward appearance, unless it was that his
voice, always so kind, had now a kinder tone and his manner was
tenderer, more sympathizing. Inwardly, however, there was a change, for
Morris Grant had lain himself upon the sacrificial altar, willing to be
and to endure whatever God should appoint, knowing that all would
eventually be for his good. To the farm-house he went every day, talking
most with Helen now, but never forgetting who it was sitting so demurely
in the arm-chair, or flitting about the room, for Katy was gaining
rapidly. Love perhaps had had nothing to do with her dangerous illness,
but it had much to do with her recovery, and those not in the secret
wondered to see how she improved, her cheeks growing round and full and
her eyes shining with returning health and happiness.

At Helen’s instigation Katy had deferred Wilford’s visit four weeks
instead of three, but in that time there had come two letters from him,
so full of anxiety and sympathy for “his poor little Katy who had been
so sick,” that even Helen began to think that he was not as proud and
heartless as she supposed, and that he did love her sister after all.

“If I supposed he meant to deceive her I should wish I was a man to
cowhide him,” she said to herself, with flashing eye, as she heard Katy
exulting that he was coming “to-morrow.”

This time he would stop at Linwood, for Katy had asked Morris if he
might, while Morris had told her yes, feeling his heart-wound throb
afresh, as he thought how hard it would be to entertain his rival. Of
himself Morris could do nothing, but with the help he never sought in
vain he could do all things, and so he gave orders that the best chamber
should be prepared for his guest, bidding Mrs. Hull see that no pains
were spared for his entertainment, and then with Katy he waited for the
day, the last one in April, which would bring Wilford Cameron a second
time to Silverton.




                              CHAPTER VII.
                        WILFORD’S SECOND VISIT.


Wilford Cameron had tried to forget Katy Lennox, both for his sake and
her own, for he foresaw that she could not be happy with his family, and
he came to think it might be a wrong to her to transplant her into a
soil so wholly unlike that in which her habits and affections had taken
root.

His father once had abruptly asked him if there was any truth in the
report that he was about to marry and make a fool of himself, and when
Wilford had answered “No,” he had replied with a significant

“Umph! Old enough, I should think, if you ever intend to marry.
Wilford,” and the old man faced square about, “I know nothing of the
girl, except what I gathered from your mother and sisters. You have not
asked my advice. I don’t suppose you want it, but if you do, here it is.
If you love the girl and she is respectable, marry her if she is poor as
poverty and the daughter of a tinker; but if you don’t love her, and
she’s as rich as a nabob, for thunder’s sake keep away from her.”

This was the elder Cameron’s counsel, and Katy’s cause rose fifty per
cent. in consequence. Still Wilford was sadly disquieted, so much so
that his partner, Mark Ray, could not fail to observe that something was
troubling him, and at last frankly asked what it was. Wilford knew he
could trust Mark, and he confessed the whole, telling him far more of
Silverton than he had told his mother, and then asking what his friend
would do were the case his own.

Fond of fun and frolic, Mark laughed immoderately at Wilford’s
description of Aunt Betsy bringing her “herrin’ bone” patch-work into
the parlor, and telling him it was a part of Katy’s “settin’ out,” but
when it came to her hint for an invitation to visit New York, the amused
young man roared with laughter, wishing so much that he might live to
see the day when poor Aunt Betsy Barlow stood ringing for admittance at
No.—— Fifth Avenue.

“Wouldn’t it be rich, though, the meeting between your Aunt Betsy and
Juno?” and the tears fairly poured down the young man’s face.

But Wilford was too serious for trifling, and after his merriment had
subsided, Mark talked with him candidly of Katy Lennox, whose cause he
warmly espoused, telling Wilford that he was far too sensitive with
regard to family and position.

“You are a good fellow on the whole, but too outrageously proud,” he
said. “Of course this Aunt Betsy in her _pongee_, whatever that may be,
and the uncle in his shirt sleeves, and this mother whom you describe as
weak and ambitious, are objections which you would rather should not
exist; but if you love the girl, take her, family and all. Not that you
are to transport the whole colony of Barlows to New York,” he added, as
he saw Wilford’s look of horror, “but make up your mind to endure what
cannot be helped, resting yourself upon the fact that your position is
such as cannot well be affected by any marriage you might make, provided
the wife were right.”

This was Mark Ray’s advice, and it had great weight with Wilford, who
knew that Mark came, if possible, from a better line of ancestry than
himself. And still Wilford hesitated, waiting until the winter was over,
before he came to the decision which, when it was reached, was firm as a
granite rock. He had made up his mind at last to marry Katy Lennox if
she would accept him, and he told his mother so in presence of his
sisters, when one evening they were all kept at home by the rain. There
was a sudden uplifting of Bell’s eyelashes, a contemptuous shrug of her
shoulders, and then she went on with the book she was reading, wondering
if Katy was at all inclined to literature, and thinking if she were that
it might be easier to tolerate her. Juno, who was expected to say the
sharpest things, turned upon him with the exclamation,

“If you can stand those two feather beds, you can do more than I
supposed,” and as one means of showing her disapproval, she quitted the
room, while Bell, who had taken to writing articles on the follies of
the age, soon followed her sister to elaborate an idea suggested to her
mind by her brother’s contemplated marriage.

Thus left alone with her son, Mrs. Cameron tried all her powers of
persuasion upon him. But nothing she said influenced him in the least,
seeing which she suddenly confronted him with the question, “Shall you
tell her _all_? A husband should have no secrets of that kind from his
wife.”

Wilford’s face was white as ashes, and his voice trembled as he replied,
“Yes, mother, I shall tell her all; but, oh! you do not know how hard it
has been for me to bring my mind to that, or how sorry I am that we ever
kept that secret—when Genevra died——”

“Hush—h!” came warningly from the mother as Juno reappeared, the warning
indicating that Genevra was a name never mentioned, except by mother and
son.

As Juno remained, the conversation was not resumed, and the next morning
Wilford wrote to Katy Lennox the letter which carried to her so much of
joy, and to Dr. Grant so much of grief. To wait four weeks, as Katy said
he must, was a terrible trial to Wilford, who counted every moment which
kept him from her side. It was all owing to Dr. Grant and that
perpendicular Helen, he knew, for Katy in her letter had admitted that
the waiting was wholly their suggestion; and Wilford’s thoughts
concerning them were anything but complimentary, until a new idea was
suggested, which drove every other consideration from his mind.

Wilford was naturally _jealous_, but that fault had once led him into so
deep a trouble that he had struggled to overcome it, and now, at its
first approach, after he thought it dead, he tried to shake it off—tried
not to believe that Morris cared especially for Katy. But the mere
possibility was unendurable, and in a most feverish state of excitement
he started again for Silverton.

As before, Morris was at the station, his cordial greeting and friendly
manner disarming him from all anxiety in that quarter, and making him
resolve anew to trample the demon jealousy under his feet, where it
could never rise again. Katy’s life should not be darkened by the green
monster, he thought, and her future would have been bright indeed had it
proved all that he pictured it as he drove along with Morris in the
direction of the farm-house.

Katy was waiting for him, and he did not hesitate to kiss her more than
once as he kept her for a moment in his arms, and then held her off to
see if her illness had left any traces upon her. It had not, except it
were in the increased delicacy of her complexion and the short hair now
growing out in silky rings. She was very pretty in her short hair, but
Wilford felt a little impatient as he saw how childish it made her look,
and thought how long it would take for it to attain its former length.
He was already appropriating her to himself, and devising ways of
improving her. In New York, with Morris Grant standing before his
jealous gaze, he could see no fault in Katy, and even now, with her
beside him, and the ogre jealousy gone, he saw no fault in _her_; it was
only her hair, and that would be remedied in time; otherwise she was
perfect, and in his delight at meeting her again he forgot to criticise
the farm-house and its occupants, as he had done before.

They were very civil to him—the mother overwhelmingly so, and Wilford
could not help detecting her anxiety that all should be settled this
time. Helen, on the contrary, was unusually cool, confirming him in his
opinion that she was strong-minded and self-willed, and making him
resolve to remove Katy as soon as possible from her influence. When
talking with his mother he had said that if Katy told him “yes,” he
should probably place her at some fashionable school for a year or two;
but on the way to Silverton he had changed his mind. He could not wait a
year, and if he married Katy at all, it should be immediately. He would
then take her to Europe, where she could have the best of teachers,
besides the advantage of traveling; and it was a very satisfactory
picture he drew of the woman whom he should introduce into New York
society as his wife, Mrs. Wilford Cameron. It is true that Katy had not
yet said the all-important word, but she was going to say it, and when
late that afternoon they came from the walk he had asked her to take,
she had listened to his tale of love and was his promised wife. Katy was
no coquette; whatever she felt she expressed, and she had frankly
confessed to Wilford her love for him, telling him how the fear that he
had forgotten her had haunted her all the long winter; and then with her
clear, truthful blue eyes looking into his, asking him why he had not
sent her some message if as he said, he loved her all the time.

For a moment Wilford’s lip was compressed and a flush overspread his
face, as, drawing her closer to him, he replied, “My little Katy will
remember that in my first note I spoke of certain circumstances which
had prevented my writing earlier. I do not know that I asked her not to
seek to know those circumstances; but I ask it now. Will Katy trust me
so far as to believe that all is right between us, and never allude to
these circumstances?”

He was kissing her fondly, and his voice was so winning that Katy
promised, and then came the hardest, the trying to tell her _all_, as he
had said to his mother he would. Twice he essayed to speak, and as often
something sealed his lips, until at last he began, “You must not think
me perfect, Katy, for I have faults, and perhaps if you knew my past
life you would wish to revoke your recent decision and render a
different verdict to my suit. Suppose I unfold the blackest leaf for
your inspection?”

“No, no, oh no,” and Katy playfully stopped his mouth with her hand. “Of
course you have some faults, but I would rather find them out by myself.
I could not hear anything against you now. I am satisfied to take you as
you are.”

Wilford felt his heart throb wildly with the feeling that he was
deceiving the young girl; but if she would not suffer him to tell her,
he was not to be censured if she remained in ignorance. And so the
golden moment fled, and when he spoke again he said, “If Katy will not
now read the leaf I offered to show her, she must not shrink in horror,
if ever it does meet her eye.”

“I won’t, I promise,” Kate answered, a vague feeling of fear creeping
over her as to what the reading of that mysterious page involved. But
this was soon forgotten, as Wilford, remembering his suspicions of Dr.
Grant, thought to probe her a little by asking if she had ever loved any
one before himself.

“No, never,” she answered. “I never dreamed of such a thing until I saw
you, Mr. Cameron;” and Wilford believed the trusting girl, whose loving
nature shone in every lineament of her face, upturned to receive the
kisses he pressed upon it, resolving within himself to be to her what he
ought to be.

“By the way,” he continued, “don’t call me Mr. Cameron again, as you did
just now. I would rather be your Wilford. It sounds more familiar;” and
then he told her of his projected tour to Europe, and Katy felt her
pulses quicken as she thought of London, Paris and Rome, as places which
her plain country eyes might yet look upon. But when it came to their
marriage, which Wilford said must be within a few weeks—she demurred,
for this arrangement was not in accordance with her desires; and she
opposed her lover with all her strength, telling him she was so young,
not eighteen till July, and she knew so little of housekeeping. He must
let her stay at home until she learned at least the art of making bread!

Poor, ignorant Katy! Wilford could not forbear a smile as he thought how
different were her views from his, and tried to explain that the art of
bread-making, though very desirable in most wives, was _not_ an
essential accomplishment for his. Servants would do that; besides he did
not intend to have a house of his own at once; he should take her first
to live with his mother, where she could learn what was necessary much
better than in Silverton.

Wilford Cameron expected to be obeyed in every important matter by the
happy person who should be his wife, and as he possessed the faculty of
enforcing perfect obedience without seeming to be severe, so he silenced
Katy’s arguments, and when they left the shadow of the butternut tree
she knew that in all human probability six weeks’ time would find her on
the broad ocean alone with Wilford Cameron. So perfect was Katy’s faith
and love that she had no fear of Wilford now, but as his affianced wife
walked confidently by his side, feeling fully his equal, nor once
dreaming how great the disparity his city friends would discover between
the fastidious man of fashion and the unsophisticated country girl. And
Wilford did not seek to enlighten her, but suffered her to talk of the
delight it would be to live in New York, and how pleasant for mother and
Helen to visit her, especially the latter, who would thus have a chance
to see something of the world.

“When I get a house of my own I mean she shall live with me all the
while,” she said, stooping to gather a tuft of wild blue-bells growing
in a marshy spot.

Wilford winced a little, but he would not so soon tear down Katy’s
castles, and so he merely remarked, as she asked if it would not be nice
to have Helen with them,

“Yes, very nice; but do not speak of it to her yet, as it will probably
be some time before she will come to us.”

And so Helen never suspected the honor in store for her as she stood in
the doorway anxiously waiting for her sister, who she feared would take
cold from being out so long. Something though in Katy’s face made her
guess that to her was lost forever the bright little sister whom she
loved so dearly, and fleeing up the narrow stairway to her room, she
wept bitterly as she thought of the coming time when she would occupy
that room alone, and know that never again would a little golden head
lie upon her neck just as it had lain, for there would be a new love, a
new interest between them, a love for the man whose voice she could hear
now talking to her mother in the peculiar tone he always assumed when
speaking to any one of them excepting Morris or Katy.

“I wish it were not wrong to hate him,” she exclaimed passionately; “it
would be such a relief; but if he is only kind to Katy, I do not care
how much he despises us,” and bathing her face, Helen sat down by her
window, wondering, if Mr. Cameron took her sister, when it would
probably be. “Not this year or more,” she said, “for Katy is so young;”
but on this point she was soon set right by Katy herself, who, leaving
her lover alone with her mother, stole up to tell her sister the good
news.

“Yes, I know; I guessed as much when you came back from the meadows,”
and Helen’s voice was very unsteady in its tone as she smoothed the soft
rings clustering around her sister’s brow.

“Crying, Helen! oh, don’t. I shall love you just the same, and you are
coming to live with us,” Katy said, forgetting Wilford’s instructions in
her desire to comfort Helen, who broke down again, while Katy’s tears
were mingled with her own.

It was the first time Katy had thought what it would be to leave forever
the good, patient sister, who had been so kind, treating her like a
petted kitten and standing between her and every hardship.

“Don’t cry, Nellie,” she said, “New York is not far away, and I shall
come so often, that is, after we return from Europe. Did I tell you we
are going there first, and Wilford will not wait, but says we must be
married the 10th of June?—that’s his birthday—thirty—and he is telling
mother now.”

“So soon—oh Katy! and you so young!” was all Helen could say, as with
quivering lip she kissed her sister’s hand raised to wipe her tears
away.

“Yes, it is soon, and I am young: but Wilford is in such a hurry; he
don’t care,” Katy replied, trying to comfort Helen, and begging of her
not to cry so hard.

No, Wilford did not care how much he wrung the hearts of Katy’s family
by taking her from them at once, and by dictating to a certain extent
the way in which he would take her. There must be no invited guests, he
said; no lookers-on, except such as chose to go to the church where the
ceremony would be performed, and from which place he should go directly
to the Boston train. It was his wish, too, that the matter should be
kept as quiet as possible, and not be generally discussed in the
neighborhood, as he disliked being a subject for gossip. And Mrs.
Lennox, to whom this was said, promised compliance with everything, or
if she ventured to object she found herself borne down by a stronger
will than her own, and weakly yielded, her manner fully testifying to
her delight at the honor conferred upon her by this high marriage of her
child. Wilford knew just how pleased she was, and her obsequious manner
annoyed him far more than Helen’s blunt straightforwardness, when, after
supper was over, she told him how averse she was to his taking Katy so
soon, adding still further that if it must be, she saw no harm in
inviting a few of their neighbors. It was customary, it would be
expected, she said, while Mrs. Lennox, emboldened by Helen’s boldness,
chimed in, “at least your folks will come; I shall be glad to meet your
mother.”

Wilford was very polite to them both; very good-humored, but he kept to
his first position, and poor Mrs. Lennox saw fade into airy nothingness
all her visions of roasted fowls and frosted cake trimmed with myrtle
and flowers, with hosts of the Silverton people there to admire and
partake of the marriage feast. It was too bad and so Aunt Betsy said,
when, after Wilford had gone to Linwood, the family sat together around
the kitchen stove, talking the matter over.

“Yes, it was too bad, when there was that white hen-turkey she could fat
up so easy before June, and she knew how to make ’lection cake that
would melt in your mouth, and was enough sight better than the black
stuff they called weddin’ cake. She meant to try what _she_ could do
with Mr. Carmon.”

And next morning when he came again she did try, holding out as
inducements why he should be married the night before starting for
Boston, the “white hen-turkey, the ’lection cake, and the gay old times
the young folks would have playing snap-and-catchem; or if they had a
mind, they could dance a bit in the kitchen. She didn’t believe in it,
to be sure—none of the Orthodox did; but as Wilford was a ’Piscopal, and
that was a ’Piscopal quirk, it wouldn’t harm for once.”

Wilford tried not to show his disgust, and only Helen suspected how hard
it was for him to keep down his utter contempt. She saw it in his eyes,
which resembled two smouldering volcanoes as they rested upon Aunt Betsy
during her harangue.

“Thank you, madam, for your good intentions, but I think we will
dispense with the turkey and the cake,” was all he said, though he did
smile at the old lady’s definition of dancing, which for once she might
allow.

Even Morris, when appealed to, decided with Wilford against Mrs. Lennox
and Aunt Betsy, knowing how unequal he was to the task which would
devolve on him in case of a bridal party at the farm-house. In
comparative silence he heard from Wilford of his engagement offering no
objection when told how soon the marriage would take place, but
congratulating him so quietly, that if Wilford had retained a feeling of
jealousy, it would have disappeared; Morris was so seemingly indifferent
to everything except Katy’s happiness. But Wilford did not observe
closely, and failed to detect the hopeless look in Morris’s eyes, or the
whiteness which settled about his mouth as he fulfilled the duties of
host and sought to entertain his guest. Those were dark hours for Morris
Grant, and he was glad when at the end of the second day Wilford’s visit
expired, and he saw him driven from Linwood round to the farm-house,
where he would say his parting words to Katy and then go back to New
York.




                             CHAPTER VIII.
                      GETTING READY TO BE MARRIED.


“MISS HELEN LENNOX, Silverton, Mass.”

This was the superscription of a letter, postmarked New York, and
brought to Helen within a week after Wilford’s departure. It was his
handwriting, too; and wondering what he could have written to her, Helen
broke the seal, starting as there dropped into her lap a check for five
hundred dollars.

“What does it mean?” she said, her cheek flushing with anger and
insulted pride as she read the following brief lines:

                                                     “NEW YORK, May 8th.

  “MISS HELEN LENNOX: Please pardon the liberty I have taken in
  enclosing the sum of $500 to be used by you in procuring whatever Katy
  may need for present necessities. Presuming that the country
  seamstresses have not the best facilities for obtaining the latest
  fashions, my mother proposes sending out her own private dressmaker,
  Mrs. Ryan. You may look for her the last of the week.

                                    “Yours truly,      WILFORD CAMERON.”

It would be impossible to describe Helen’s indignation as she read this
letter, which roused her to a pitch of anger such as Wilford Cameron had
never imagined when he wrote the offensive lines. He had really no
intention of insulting her. On the contrary, the gift of money was
kindly meant, for he knew that Uncle Ephraim was poor, while the part
referring to the dressmaker was wholly his mother’s proposition, to
which he had acceded, knowing how much confidence Juno had in her taste,
and that whatever she might see at the farm-house would remain a secret
with her, or at most be confined to the ears of his mother and sisters.
He wished Katy to look well, and foolishly fancying that no country
artiste could make her look so, he consented to Mrs. Ryan’s going, never
dreaming of the effect it would have upon Helen, whose first impulse was
to throw the check into the fire. Her second, however, was soberer. She
would not destroy it, nor tell any one she had it, but Morris—_he_
should know the whole. Accordingly, she repaired to Linwood, finding
Morris at home, and startling him with the vehemence of her anger as she
explained the nature of her errand.

“If I disliked Wilford Cameron before, I hate him now. Yes, hate him,”
she said, stamping her little foot in fury.

“Why, Helen!” Morris exclaimed, laying his hand reprovingly on her
shoulder; “is this the right spirit for one who professes better things?
Stop a moment and think.”

“I know it is wrong,” Helen answered, “but somehow since he came after
Katy, I have grown so hard, so wicked toward Mr. Cameron. He seems so
proud, so unapproachable. Say, Cousin Morris, do you think him a good
man, that is, good enough for Katy?”

“Most people would call him too good for her,” Morris replied. “And, in
a worldly point of view, she is doing well. Cameron, I believe, is
better than three-fourths of the men who marry our girls. He is very
proud: but that results from his education and training. Looking only
from a New York standpoint he misjudges country people, but he will
appreciate you by and by. Do not begin by hating him so cordially.”

“Yes, but this money. Now, Morris, we do not want him to get Katy’s
outfit. I would rather go without clothes my whole life. Shall I send it
back?”

“I think that the best disposition to make of it,” Morris replied. “As
your brother, I can and will supply Katy’s needs.”

“I knew you would, Morris. And I’ll send it to-day, in time to keep that
dreadful Mrs. Ryan from coming; for I won’t have any of Wilford
Cameron’s dressmakers in the house.”

Morris could not help smiling at Helen’s energetic manner, as she
hurried to his library and taking his pen wrote to Wilford Cameron as
follows:

                                                SILVERTON, May 9th, 18—.

  MR. WILFORD CAMERON:—I give you credit for the kindest of motives in
  sending the check which I now return to you, with my compliments. We
  are not as poor as you suppose, and would almost deem it sacrilege to
  let another than ourselves provide for Katy so long as she is ours.
  And furthermore, Mrs. Ryan’s services will not be needed, so it is not
  worth her while to make a journey here for nothing.

                                                   Yours,
                                                           HELEN LENNOX.

Helen felt better after this letter had gone, wondering often how it
would be received, and if Wilford would be angry. She hoped he would,
and his mother too. “The idea of sending that Ryan woman to us, as if we
did not know anything!” and Helen’s lip curled scornfully as she thus
denounced the Ryan woman, whose trunk was packed with paper patterns and
devices of various kinds when the letter arrived, saying she was not
needed. Being a woman of few words, she quietly unpacked her patterns
and went back to the work she was engaged upon when Mrs. Cameron
proposed her going into the country. Juno, on the contrary, flew into a
violent passion to think their first friendly advances should be thus
received. Bell laughed immoderately, saying she liked Helen Lennox’s
spirit, and wished her brother had chosen her instead of the other, who,
she presumed, was a milk and water thing, even if Mrs. Woodhull did
extol her so highly. Mrs. Cameron felt the rebuke keenly, wincing under
it, and saying “that Helen Lennox must be a very rude, ill-bred girl,”
and hoping her son would draw the line of division between his wife and
her family so tightly that the sister could never pass over it. She had
received the news of her son’s engagement without opposition, for she
knew the time for that was past. Wilford would marry Katy Lennox, and
she must make the best of it, so she offered no remonstrance, but, when
they were alone, she said to him, “Did you tell her? Does she know it
all?”

“No, mother,” and the old look of pain came back into Wilford’s face. “I
meant to do so, and I actually began, but she stopped me short, saying
she did not wish to hear my faults, she would rather find them out
herself. Away from her it is very easy to think what I will do, but when
the trial comes I find it hard, we have kept it so long; but I shall
tell her yet; not till after we are married though, and I have made her
love me even more than she does now. She will not mind it then. I shall
take her where I first met Genevra, and there I will tell her. Is that
right?”

“Yes, if you think so,” Mrs. Cameron replied.

Whatever it was which Wilford had to tell Katy Lennox, it was very
evident that he and his mother looked at it differently, he regarding it
as a duty he owed to Katy not to conceal from her what might possibly
influence her decision, while his mother only wished the secret told in
hopes that it would prevent the marriage; but now that Wilford had
deferred it till after the marriage, she saw no reason why it need be
told at all. At least Wilford could do as he thought best, and she
changed the conversation from Genevra to Helen’s letter, which had so
upset her plans. That her future daughter-in-law was handsome she did
not doubt, but she, of course, had no manner, no style, and as a means
of improving her in the latter respect, and making her presentable at
the altar and in Boston, she had proposed sending out _Ryan_; but that
project had failed, and Helen Lennox did not stand very high in the
Cameron family, though Wilford in his heart felt an increased respect
for her independent spirit, notwithstanding that she had thwarted his
designs.

“I have another idea,” Mrs. Cameron said to her daughters that
afternoon, when talking with them upon the subject. “Wilford tells me
Katy and Bell are about the same size and figure, and Ryan shall make up
a traveling suit proper for the occasion. Of course there will be no one
at the wedding for whom we care, but in Boston, at the Revere, it will
be different. Cousin Harvey boards there, and she is very stylish. I saw
some elegant grey poplins, of the finest lustre, at Stewart’s yesterday.
Suppose we drive down this afternoon.”

This was said to Juno as the more fashionable one of the sisters, but
Bell answered quickly, “Poplin, mother, on Katy? It will not become her
style, I am sure, though suitable for many. If I am to be fitted, I
shall say a word about the fabric. Get a little checked silk, as
expensive as you like. It will suit her better than a heavy poplin.”

Perhaps Bell was right, Mrs. Cameron said; they would look at both, and
as the result of this looking, two dresses, one of the finest poplin,
and one of the softest, richest, plaided silk, were given the next day
into Mrs. Ryan’s hands, with injunctions to spare no pains or expense in
trimming and making both. And so the dress-making for Katy’s bridal was
proceeding in New York, in spite of Helen’s letter; while down in
Silverton, at the farm-house, there were numerous consultations as to
what was proper and what was not, Helen sometimes almost wishing she had
suffered Mrs. Ryan to come. Katy would look well in anything, but Helen
knew there were certain styles preferable to others, and in a maze of
perplexity she consulted with this and that individual, until all
Silverton knew what was projected, each one offering the benefit of her
advice until Helen and Katy were nearly distracted. Aunt Betsy suggested
a blue delaine and round cape, offering to get it herself, and actually
purchasing the material with her own funds, saved from drying apples.
That would answer for one dress, Helen said, but not for the wedding;
and she was becoming more undecided, when Morris came to the rescue,
telling Katy of a young woman who had for some time past been his
patient, but who was now nearly well and was anxious to obtain work
again. She had evidently seen better days, he said; was very lady-like
in her manner, and possessed of a great deal of taste, he imagined;
besides that, she had worked in one of the largest shops in New York.
“As I am going this afternoon over to North Silverton,” he added, in
conclusion, “and shall pass Miss Hazelton’s house, you or Helen might
accompany me and see for yourself.”

It was decided that Helen should go, and about four o’clock she found
herself ringing at the cottage over whose door hung the sign, “Miss M.
Hazelton, Fashionable Dressmaker.” She was at home, and in a few moments
Helen was talking with Marian Hazelton, whose face showed signs of
recent illness, but was nevertheless very attractive, from its
peculiarly sad expression and the soft liquid eyes of dark blue, which
looked as if they were not strangers to tears. At twenty she must have
been strikingly beautiful; and even now, at thirty, few ladies could
have vied with her had she possessed the means for gratifying her taste
and studying her style. About the mouth, so perfect in repose, there was
when she spoke a singularly sweet smile, which in a measure prepared one
for the low, silvery voice, which had a strange note of mournful music
in its tone, making Helen start as it asked, “Did you wish to see me?”

“Yes; Dr. Grant told me you could make dresses, and I drove round with
him to secure your services, if possible, for my sister, who is soon to
be married. We would like it so much if you could go to our house
instead of having Katy come here.”

Marian Hazelton was needing work, for there was due more than three
months’ board, besides the doctor’s bill, and so, though it was not her
custom to go from house to house, she would, in this instance,
accommodate Miss Lennox, especially as during her illness her customers
had many of them gone elsewhere, and her little shop was nearly broken
up. “Was it an elaborate trousseau she was expected to make?” and she
bent down to turn over some fashion plates lying upon the table.

“Oh, no! we are plain country people. We cannot afford as much for Katy
as we would like; besides, I dare say Mr. Cameron will prefer selecting
most of her wardrobe himself, as he is very wealthy and fastidious,”
Helen replied, repenting the next instant the part concerning Mr.
Cameron’s wealth, as that might look like boasting to Miss Hazelton,
whose head was bent lower over the magazine as she said, “Did I
understand that the gentleman’s name was Cameron?”

“Yes, Wilford Cameron, from New York,” Helen answered, holding up her
skirts and s-s-kt-ing at the kitten which came running toward her,
evidently intent upon springing into her lap.

Fear of cats was Helen’s weakness, if weakness it can be called, and in
her efforts to frighten her tormentor she did not look again at Miss
Hazelton until startled by a gasping cry and heavy fall. Marian had
fainted, and Helen was just raising her head from the floor to her lap
when Morris appeared, relieving her of her burden, of whom he took
charge until she showed signs of life. In her alarm Helen forgot
entirely what they were talking about when the faint came on, and her
first question put to Marian was, “Were you taken suddenly ill? Why did
you faint?”

There was no answer at first; but when she did speak Marian said, “I am
still so weak that the least exertion affects me, and I was bending over
the table; it will soon pass off.”

If she was so weak she was not able to work, Helen said, proposing that
the plan be for the present abandoned, but to this Marian would not
listen; and her great eager eyes had in them so scared a look that Helen
said no more on that subject, but made arrangements for her coming to
them at once. Morris was to leave his patient some medicine, and while
he was preparing it, Helen had time to notice her more carefully,
admiring her lady-like manners, and thinking her smile the sweetest she
had ever seen. Greatly interested in her, Helen plied Morris with
questions of Miss Hazelton during their ride home, asking what he knew
of her.

“Nothing, except that she came to North Silverton a year ago, opening
her shop, and by her faithfulness, and pleasant, obliging manners,
winning favor with all who employed her. Previous to her sickness she
had a few times attended St. Paul’s at South Silverton, that being the
church of her choice. Had Helen never observed her?”

No, Helen had not. And then she spoke of her fainting, telling how
sudden it was, and wondering if she was subject to such turns. Marian
Hazelton had made a strong impression on Helen’s mind, and she talked of
her so much that Katy waited her appearance at the farm-house with
feverish anxiety. It was evening when she came, looking very white, and
seeming to Helen as if she had changed since she saw her first. In her
eyes there was a kind of hopeless, weary expression, while her smile
made one almost wish to cry, it was so sad, and yet so strangely sweet.
Katy felt its influence at once, growing very confidential with the
stranger, who, during the half hour in which they were accidentally left
alone, drew from her every particular concerning her intended marriage.
Very closely the dark blue eyes scrutinized little Katy, taking in first
the faultless beauty of her face, and then going away down into the
inmost depths of her character, as if to find out what was there.

“Pure, loving innocent, and unsuspecting,” was Marian Hazelton’s
verdict, and she followed wistfully every movement of the young girl as
she flitted around the room, chatting as familiarly with the dressmaker
as if she were a friend long known instead of an entire stranger.

“You look very young to be married,” Miss Hazelton said to her once, and
shaking back her short rings of hair Katy answered, “Eighteen next
Fourth of July; but Mr. Cameron is thirty.”

“Is he a widower?” was the next question, which Katy answered with a
merry laugh. “Mercy, no! _I_ marry a widower! How funny! I don’t believe
he ever cared a fig for anybody but me. I mean to ask him.”

“I would,” and the pale lips shut tightly together, while a resentful
gleam shot for a moment across Marian’s face; but it quickly passed
away, and her smile was as sweet as ever as she at last bade the family
good night and repaired to the little room where Wilford Cameron once
had slept.

A long time she stood before the glass, brushing her dark abundant hair,
and intently regarding her own features, while in her eyes there was a
hard, terrible look, from which Katy Lennox would have shrunk in fear.
But that too passed, and the eyes grew soft with tears as she turned
away, and falling on her knees moaned sadly, “I never will—no, I never
will. God help me to keep the promise. Were it the other one—Helen—I
might, for she could bear it; but Katy, that child—no, I never will,”
and as the words died on her lips there came struggling up from her
heart a prayer for Katy Lennox’s happiness, as fervent and sincere as
any which had ever been made for her since she was betrothed.

They grew to liking each other rapidly, Marian and Katy, the latter of
whom thought her new friend greatly out of place as a dressmaker,
telling her she ought to marry some rich man, calling her Marian
altogether, and questioning her very closely of her previous life. But
Marian only told her that she was born in London; that she learned her
trade on the Isle of Wight, near to the Osborne House, where the royal
family sometimes came, and that she had often seen the present Queen,
thus trying to divert Katy’s mind from asking what there was besides
that apprenticeship to the Misses True on the Isle of Wight. Once indeed
she went farther, saying that her friends were dead; that she had come
to America in hopes of doing better than she could at home; that she had
stayed in New York until her health began to fail, and then had tried
what country air would do, coming to North Silverton because a young
woman who worked in the same shop was acquainted there, and recommended
the place. This was all Katy could learn, and Marian’s heart history, if
she had one, was guarded carefully.

They had decided at last upon the wedding dress, which Helen reserved
the right to make herself. Miss Hazelton must fit it, of course, but to
her belonged the privilege of making it, every stitch; Katy would think
more of it if she did it all, she said; but she did not confess how the
bending over the dress, both early and late, was the escape-valve for
the feeling which otherwise would have found vent in passionate tears.
Helen was very wretched during the pleasant May days she usually enjoyed
so much, but over which now a dark pall was spread, shutting out all the
brightness and leaving only the terrible certainty that Katy was lost to
her forever—bright, frolicsome Katy, who, without a shadow on her heart,
sported amid the bridal finery, unmindful of the anguish tugging at the
hearts of both the patient women, Marian and Helen, who worked on so
silently, reserving their tears for the night-time, when Katy was
dreaming of Wilford Cameron. Helen was greatly interested in Marian, but
never guessed that her feelings, too, were stirred to their very depths
as the bridal preparations progressed. She only knew how wretched she
was herself, and how hard it was to fight her tears back as she bent
over the silk, weaving in with every stitch a part of the clinging love
which each day grew stronger for the only sister, who would soon be
gone, leaving her alone. Only once did she break entirely down, and that
was when the dress was done and Katy tried it on, admiring its effect
and having a second glass brought that she might see it behind.

“Isn’t it lovely?” she exclaimed; “and the more valuable because you
made it. I shall think of you every time I wear it,” and the impulsive
girl wound her arms around Helen’s neck, kissing her lovingly, while
Helen sank into a chair and sobbed aloud, “Oh, Katy, darling Katy! you
won’t forget me when you are rich and admired, and can have all you
want? You will remember us here at home, so sad and lonely? You don’t
know how desolate it will be, knowing you are gone, never to come back
again, just as you go away.”

In an instant Katy was on her knees before Helen, whom she tried to
comfort by telling her she should come back,—come often, too, staying a
long while; and that when she had a city home of her own she should live
with her for good, and they would be so happy.

“I cannot quite give Wilford up to please you,” she said, when that
gigantic sacrifice suggested itself as something which it was possible
Helen might require of her; “but I will do anything else, only please
don’t cry, darling Nellie—please don’t cry. It spoils all my pleasure,”
and Katy’s soft hands wiped away the tears running so fast over her
sister’s face.

After that Helen did not cry again in Katy’s presence, but the latter
knew she wanted to, and it made her rather sad, particularly when she
saw reflected in the faces of the other members of the family the grief
she had witnessed in Helen. Even Uncle Ephraim was not as cheerful as
usual, and once when Katy came upon him in the wood-shed chamber, where
he was shelling corn, she found him resting from his work and looking
from the window far off across the hills, with a look which made her
guess he was thinking of her, and stealing up beside him she laid her
hand upon his wrinkled face, whispering softly, “Poor Uncle Eph, are you
sorry, too?”

He knew what she meant, and the aged chin quivered, while a big tear
dropped into the tub of corn as he replied. “Yes, Katy-did—very sorry.”

That was all he said, and Katy, after smoothing his silvery hair a
moment, kissed his cheek and then stole away, wondering if the love to
which she was going was equal to the love of home, which, as the days
went by, grew stronger and stronger, enfolding her in a mighty embrace,
which could only be severed by bitter tears and fierce heart-pangs, such
as death itself sometimes brings. In that household there was, after
Katy, no one glad of that marriage except the mother, and she was only
glad because of the position it would bring to her daughter. But among
them all Morris suffered most, and suffered more because he had to
endure in secret, so that no one guessed the pain it was for him to go
each day where Katy was, and watch her as she sometimes donned a part of
her finery for his benefit, asking him once if he did not wish he were
in Wilford’s place, so as to have as pretty a bride as she should make.
Then Marian Hazelton glanced up in time to see the expression of his
face, a look whose meaning she readily recognized, and when Dr. Grant
left the farm-house that day, another than himself knew of his love for
Katy, drawing her breath hurriedly as she thought of taking back the
words, “I never will,”—of revoking that decision and telling Katy what
Wilford Cameron should have told her long before. But the wild wish
fled, and Wilford’s secret was safe, while Marian watched Morris Grant
with a pitying interest as he came among them, speaking always in the
same kind, gentle tone, and trying so hard to enter into Katy’s joy.

“His burden is greater than mine. God help us both,” Marian said, as she
resumed her work.

And so amid joy and gladness, silent tears and breaking hearts, the
preparations went on until all was done, and only three days remained
before the eventful tenth. Marian Hazelton was going home, for she would
not stay at the farm-house until all was over, notwithstanding Katy’s
entreaties were joined to those of Helen.

“Perhaps she would come to the church,” she said, “though she could not
promise;” and her manner was so strange that Katy wondered if she could
have offended her, and at last said to her timidly, as she stood with
her bonnet on, waiting for Uncle Ephraim, “You are not angry with me for
anything, are you?”

“Angry with _you_!” and Katy never forgot the glitter of the tearful
eyes, or their peculiar expression as they turned upon her. “No, oh, no;
I could not be angry with you, and yet, Katy Lennox, some in my position
would _hate_ you, contrasting your prospects with their own; but I do
not; I love you; I bless you, and pray that you may be happy with your
husband; honor him, obey him if need be, and above all, never give him
the slightest cause to doubt you. You will have admirers, Katy Lennox.
In New York others than your husband will speak to you words of
flattery, but don’t you listen. Remember what I tell you; and now,
again, God bless you.”

She touched her lips to Katy’s forehead, and when they were withdrawn
there were great tears there which she had left! Marian’s tears on
Katy’s brow; and it was very meet that just before her bridal day
Wilford Cameron’s bride should receive such baptism from Marian
Hazelton.




                              CHAPTER IX.
                          BEFORE THE MARRIAGE.


Oh the morning of the 9th day of June, 18—, Wilford Cameron stood in his
father’s parlor, surrounded by the entire family, who, after their
unusually early breakfast, had assembled to bid him good-bye, for
Wilford was going for his bride, and it would be months, if not a year,
ere he returned to them again. They had given him up to his idol, asking
only that none of the idol’s family should be permitted to cross their
threshold, and also that the idol should not often be allowed the
privilege of returning to the place from whence she came. These
restrictions had emanated from the female portion of the Cameron family,
the mother, Juno and Bell. The father, on the contrary, had sworn
roundly as he would sometimes swear at what he called the contemptible
pride of his wife and daughters. Katy was sure of a place in his heart
just because of the pride which was building up so high a wall between
her and her friends, and when at parting he held his son’s hand in his,
he said,

“I charge you, Will, be kind to that young girl, and don’t for Heaven’s
sake go to cramming her with airs and nonsense which she does not
understand. Tell her I’ll be a father to her; her own, you say, is dead,
and give her this as my bridal present.”

He held out a small box containing a most exquisite set of pearls, such
as he fancied would be becoming to the soft, girlish beauty Wilford had
described. Something in his father’s manner touched Wilford closely,
making him resolve anew that if Kitty were not happy as Mrs. Cameron it
should not be his fault. His mother had said all she wished to say,
while his sisters had been gracious enough to send their love to the
bride, Bell hoping she would look as well in the poplin and little plaid
as she had done. Either was suitable for the wedding day, Mrs. Cameron
said, and she might take her choice, only Wilford must see that she did
not wear with the poplin the gloves and belt intended for the silk;
country people had so little taste, and she did want Katy to look well,
even if she were not there to see her. And with his brain a confused
medley of poplins and plaids, belts and gloves, pearls and Katy, Wilford
finally tore himself away, and at three o’clock that afternoon drove
through Silverton village, past the little church, which the Silverton
maidens were decorating with flowers, pausing a moment in their work to
look at him as he went by. Among them was Marian Hazelton, but she only
bent lower over her work, thus hiding the tear which dropped upon the
delicate buds she was fashioning into the words, “Joy to the Bride,”
intending the whole as the center of the wreath to be placed over the
altar where all could see it.

“The handsomest man I ever saw,” was the verdict of most of the girls as
they came back to their work, while Wilford drove on to the farm-house
where Katy had been so anxiously watching for him.

When he came in sight, however, and she knew he was actually there, she
ran away to hide her blushes, and the feeling of awe which had come
suddenly over her for the man who was to be her husband. But Helen bade
her go back, and so she went coyly in to Wilford, who met her with
loving caresses, and then put upon her finger the superb diamond which
he said he had thought to send as a pledge of their engagement, but had
finally concluded to wait and present himself. Katy had heard much of
diamonds, and seen some in Canandaigua; but the idea that she, plain
Katy Lennox, would ever wear them, had never entered her mind; and now,
as she looked at the brilliant gem sparkling upon her hand, she felt a
thrill of something more than joy at that good fortune which had brought
her to diamonds. Vanity, we suppose it was—such vanity as was very
natural in her case, and she thought she should never tire of looking at
the precious stone; but when Wilford showed her next the plain broad
band of gold, and tried it on her third finger, asking if she knew what
it meant, the true woman spoke within her, and she answered tearfully,

“Yes, I know, and I will try to prove worthy of what I shall be to you
when I wear that ring for good.”

Katy was very quiet for a moment as she sat with her head nestled
against Wilford’s bosom, but when he observed that she was looking
tired, and asked if she had been working hard, the quiet fit was broken,
and she told him of the dress “we had made,” the _we_ referring solely
to Helen and Marian, for Katy had hardly done a thing. But it did not
matter; she fancied she had, and she asked if he did not wish to see her
dresses. Wilford knew it would please Katy, and so he followed her into
the adjoining room, where they were spread out upon tables and chairs,
with Helen in their midst, ready to pack them away. Wilford thought of
Mrs. Ryan and the check, but he shook hands with Helen very civilly,
saying to her playfully,

“I suppose you are willing I should take your sister with me this time.”

Helen could not answer, but turned away to hide her face, while Katy
showed one dress after another, until she came to the silk, which, with
a bright blush, she told him “was the very thing itself—the one intended
for to-morrow,” and asked if he did not like it.

Wilford could not help telling her yes, for he knew she wished him to do
so, but in his heart he was thinking bad thoughts against the wardrobe
of his bride elect—thoughts which would have won for him the title of
_hen-huzzy_ from Helen, could she have known them. And yet Wilford did
not deserve that name. He had been accustomed all his life to hearing
dress discussed in his mother’s parlor, and in his sister’s boudoir,
while for the last five weeks he had heard at home of little else than
the probable _tout ensemble_ of Katy’s wardrobe, bought and made in the
country, his mother deciding finally to write to her cousin, Mrs.
Harvey, who boarded at the Revere, and have her see to it before Katy
left the city. Under these circumstances, it was not strange that
Wilford did not enter into Katy’s delight, even after she told him how
Helen had made every stitch of the dress herself, and that it would on
that account be very dear to her. This was a favorable time for getting
the poplin off his mind, and with a premonitory _ahem_ he said, “Yes, it
is very nice, no doubt; but,” and here he turned to Helen, “after Mrs.
Ryan’s services were declined, my mother determined to have two dresses
fitted to sister Bell, who I think is just Katy’s size and figure. I
need not say,” and his eyes still rested on Helen, who gave him back an
unflinching glance, “I need not say that no pains have been spared to
make these garments everything they should be in point of quality and
style. I have them in my trunk, and,” turning now to Katy, “it is my
mother’s special request that one of them be worn to-morrow. You could
take your choice, she said—either was suitable. I will bring them for
your inspection.”

He left the room, while Helen’s face resembled a dark thunder-cloud,
whose lightnings shone in her flashing eyes as she looked after him and
then back to where Katy stood, bewildered and wondering what was wrong.

“Who is Mrs. Ryan?” she asked. “What does he mean?” but before Helen
could command her voice to explain, Wilford was with them again,
bringing the dresses, over which Katy nearly went wild.

She had never seen anything as elegant as the rich heavy poplin or the
soft lustrous silk, while even Helen acknowledged that there was about
them a finish which threw Miss Hazelton’s quite in the shade.

“Beautiful!” Katy exclaimed; “and trimmed so exquisitely! I do so hope
they will fit!”

“I dare say they will,” Wilford replied, enjoying her appreciation of
his mother’s gift. “At all events they will answer for to-morrow, and
any needful alterations can be made in Boston. Which will you wear?”

“Oh, I don’t know. I wish I could wear both. Helen, which shall I?” and
Katy appealed to her sister, who could endure no more, but hid her head
among the pillows of the bed and cried.

Katy understood the whole, and dropping the silk to which she inclined
the most, she flew to Helen’s side and whispered to her, “Don’t, Nellie,
I won’t wear either of them. I’ll wear the one you made. It was mean and
vain in me to think of doing otherwise.”

During this scene Wilford had stolen from the room, and with him gone
Helen was capable of judging candidly and sensibly. She knew the city
silk was handsomer and better suited for Wilford Cameron’s bride than
the country plaid, and so she said to Katy, “I would rather you should
wear the one they sent. It will become you better. Suppose you try it
on,” and in seeking to gratify her sister, Helen forgot in part her own
cruel disappointment, and that her work of days had been for naught. The
dress fitted well, though Katy pronounced it too tight and too long. A
few moments, however, accustomed her to the length, and then her mother,
Aunt Hannah, and Aunt Betsy, came to see and admire, while Katy proposed
going out to Wilford, but Helen kept her back, Aunt Betsy remarking
under her breath, that “she didn’t see for the life on her how Catherine
could be so free and easy with that man when just the sight of him was
enough to take away a body’s breath.”

“More free and easy than she will be by and by,” was Helen’s mental
comment as she proceeded quietly to pack the trunk which Morris had
brought for the voyage across the sea, dropping into it many a tear as
she folded away one article after another, and wondered under what
circumstances she should see them again if she saw them ever.

Helen was a Christian girl, and many a time had she prayed in secret
that He who rules the deep would keep its waters calm and still while
her sister was upon them, and she prayed so now, constantly, burying her
face once in her hands, and asking that Katy might come back to them
unchanged, if possible, and asking next that God would remove from her
heart all bitterness towards the bridegroom, who was to be her brother,
and whom, after that short, earnest prayer, she found herself liking
better. He loved Katy, she was sure, and that was all she cared for,
though she did wish he would release her before twelve o’clock on that
night, the last she would spend with them for a long, long time. But
Wilford kept her with him in the parlor, kissing away the tears which
flowed so fast when she recalled the prayer said by Uncle Ephraim, with
her kneeling by him as she might never kneel again. He had called her by
her name, and his voice was very sad as he commended her to God, asking
that he would “be with our little Katy wherever she might go, keeping
her in all the _mewandering_ scenes of life, and bringing her at last to
his own heavenly home.”

Wilford himself was touched, and though he noticed the deacon’s
pronunciation, he did not even smile, and his manner was very
respectful, when, after the prayer was over and they were alone a
moment, the white-haired deacon felt it incumbent upon him to say a few
words concerning Katy.

“She’s a young, rattle-headed creature, not much like your own kin, I
guess; but, young man, she is as dear as the apple of our eyes, and I
charge you to treat her well. She has never had a crossways word spoke
to her all her life, and don’t you be the first to speak it, nor let
your folks browbeat her.”

As they were alone, it was easier for Wilford to be humble and
conciliatory, and he promised all the old man required, and then went
back to Katy, who was going into raptures over the beautiful little
watch which Morris had sent over as her bridal gift from him. Even Mrs.
Cameron herself could have found no fault with this, and Wilford praised
it as much as Katy could desire, noticing the inscription, “Katy, from
Cousin Morris, June 10th, 18—” wishing that after the “Katy” had come
the name Cameron, and wondering if Morris had any design in omitting it.
Wilford had not yet presented his father’s gift, but he did so now, and
Katy’s tears dropped upon the pale, soft pearls as she whispered, “I
shall like your father. I never thought of having things like these.”

Nor had she; but she would grow to them very soon, while even the family
gathering round and sharing in her joy began to realize how great a lady
their Katy was to be. It was late that night ere anybody slept, if sleep
at all they did, which was doubtful, unless it were the bride, who, with
Wilford’s kisses warm upon her lips, crept up to bed just as the clock
was striking twelve, nor awoke until it was again chiming six, and over
her Helen bent, a dark ring about her eyes and her face very white as
she whispered, “Wake, Katy darling, this is your wedding day.”




                               CHAPTER X.
                        MARRIAGE AT ST. JOHN’S.


There were more than a few lookers-on to see Katy Lennox married, and
the church was literally jammed for full three-quarters of an hour
before the appointed time. Back by the door, where she commanded a full
view of the middle aisle, Marian Hazelton sat, her face as white as
ashes, and her eyes gleaming strangely wild from beneath the thickly
dotted veil she wore over her hat. Doubts as to her wisdom in coming
there were agitating her mind, but something kept her sitting just as
others sat waiting for the bride until the sexton, opening wide the
doors, and assuming an added air of consequence, told the anxious
spectators that the party had arrived—Uncle Ephraim and Katy, Wilford
and Mrs. Lennox, Dr. Morris and Helen, Aunt Hannah and Aunt Betsy—that
was all, and they came slowly up the aisle, while countless eyes were
turned upon them, every woman noticing Katy’s dress sweeping the carpet
with so long a trail, and knowing by some queer female instinct that it
was city-made, and not the handiwork of Marian Hazelton, panting for
breath in that pew near the door, and trying to forget herself by
watching Dr. Grant. She could not have told what Katy wore; she would
not have sworn that Katy was there, for she saw only two, Wilford and
Morris Grant. She could have touched the former as he passed her by, and
she did breathe the odor of his garments while her hands clasped each
other tightly, and then she turned to Morris Grant, growing content with
her own pain, so much less than his as he stood before the altar with
Wilford Cameron between him and the bride which should have been his.
How pretty she was in her wedding garb, and how like a bird her voice
rang out as she responded to the solemn question,

“Will you have this man to be thy wedded husband,” etc.

Upon Uncle Ephraim devolved the duty of giving her away, a thing which
Aunt Betsy denounced as a “’Piscopal quirk,” classing it in the same
category with dancing. Still if Ephraim had got it to do she wanted him
to do it well, and she had taken some pains to study that part of the
ceremony, so as to know when to, nudge her brother in case he failed of
coming up to time.

“Now, Ephraim, now; they’ve reached the quirk,” she whispered, audibly,
almost before Katy’s “I will” was heard, clear and distinct; but Ephraim
did not need her prompting, and his hand rested lovingly upon Katy’s
shoulder as he signified his consent, and then fell back to his place
next to Hannah. But when Wilford’s voice said, “I, Wilford, take thee
Katy to be my wedded wife,” there was a slight confusion near the door,
and those sitting by said to those in front that some one had fainted.
Looking round, the audience saw the sexton leading Marian Hazelton out
into the open air, where, at her request, he left her, and went back to
see the closing of the ceremony which made Katy Lennox a wife. Morris’s
carriage was at the door, and the newly married pair moved slowly out,
Katy smiling upon all, kissing her hand to some and whispering a
good-bye to others, her diamonds flashing in the light and her rich silk
rustling as she walked, while at her side was Wilford, proudly erect,
and holding his head so high as not to see one of the crowd around him,
until, arrived at the vestibule, he stopped a moment and was seized by a
young man with curling hair, saucy eyes, and that air of ease and
assurance which betokens high breeding and wealth.

“Mark Ray!” was Wilford’s astonished exclamation, while Mark Ray
replied,

“You did net expect to see me here, neither did I expect to come until
last night, when I found myself in the little village where you know
Scranton lives. Then it occurred to me that as Silverton was only a few
miles distant I would drive over and surprise you, but I am too late for
the ceremony, I see,” and Mark’s eyes rested admiringly upon Katy, whose
graceful beauty was fully equal to what he had imagined.

Very modestly she received his congratulatory greeting, blushing
prettily when he called her by the new name she had not heard before,
and then, at a motion from Wilford, entered the carriage waiting for
her. Close behind her came Morris and Helen, the former quite as much
astonished at meeting Mark as Wilford had been. There was no time for
conversation, and hurriedly introducing Helen as Miss Lennox, Morris
followed her into the carriage with the bridal pair, and was driven to
the depot, where they were joined by Mark, whose pleasant good-humored
sallies did much towards making the parting more cheerful than it would
otherwise have been. It was sad enough at the most, and Katy’s eyes were
very red, while Wilford was beginning to look chagrined and impatient,
when at last the train swept round the corner and the very last good-bye
was said. Many of the village people were there to see Katy off, and in
the crowd Mark had no means of distinguishing the Barlows from the
others, except it were by the fond caresses given to the bride. Aunt
Betsy he had observed from all the rest, both from the hanging of her
pongee and the general quaintness of her attire, and thinking it just
possible that it might be the lady of herrin’ bone memory, he touched
Wilford’s arm as she passed them by, and said,

“Tell me, Will, quick, who is that woman in the poke bonnet and short,
slim dress?”

Wilford was just then too much occupied in his efforts to rescue Katy
from the crowd of plebeians who had seized upon her to hear his friends
query, but Helen heard it, and with a cheek which crimsoned with anger,
she replied,

“That, sir, is my aunt, Miss Betsy Barlow.”

“I beg your pardon, I really do. I was not aware——”

Mark began, lifting his hat involuntarily, and mentally cursing himself
for his stupidity in not observing who was near to him before asking
personal questions.

With a toss of her head Helen turned away, forgetting her resentment in
the more absorbing thought that Katy was leaving her.

The bell had rung, the heavy machinery groaned and creaked, and the long
train was under way, while from an open window a little white hand was
thrust, waving its handkerchief until the husband quietly drew it in,
experiencing a feeling of relief that all was over, and that unless he
chose his wife need never go back again to that vulgar crowd standing
upon the platform and looking with tearful eyes and aching hearts after
the fast receding train.

For a moment Mark talked with Morris Grant, explaining how he came
there, and adding that on the morrow he too intended going on to Boston,
to remain for a few days before Wilford sailed; then, feeling that he
must in some way atone for his awkward speech regarding Aunt Betsy, he
sought out Helen, still standing like a statue and watching the feathery
line of smoke rising above the distant trees. Her bonnet had partially
fallen from her head, revealing her bands of rich brown hair and the
smooth broad forehead, while her hands were locked together, and a tear
trembled on her dark eyelashes. Taken as a whole she made a striking
picture standing apart from the rest and totally oblivious to them all,
and Mark gazed at her a moment curiously; then, as her attitude changed
and she drew her hat back to its place, he advanced toward her, making
some pleasant remark about the morning and the appearance of the country
generally. He knew he could not openly apologize, but he made what
amends he could by talking to her so familiarly that Helen almost forgot
how she hated him and all others who like him lived in New York and
resembled Wilford Cameron. It was Mark who led her to the carriage which
Morris said was waiting. Mark who handed her in, smoothing down the
folds of her dress, and then stood leaning against the door, chatting
with Morris, who thought once of asking him to enter and go back to
Linwood. But when he remembered how unequal he was to entertaining any
one that day, he said merely,

“On your way from Boston, call and see me. I shall be glad of your
company then.”

“Which means that you do not wish it now,” Mark laughingly rejoined, as,
offering his hand to both Morris and Helen, he touched his hat and
walked away.




                              CHAPTER XI.
                          AFTER THE MARRIAGE.


“Why did you invite him to Linwood?” Helen began. “I am sure we have had
city guests enough. Oh, if Wilford Cameron had only never come, we
should have had Katy now,” and the sister-love overcame every other
feeling, making Helen cry bitterly as they drove back to the farm-house.

Morris could not comfort her then, and so in silence he left her and
went on his way to Linwood. It was well for him that there were many
sick ones on his list, for in attending to them he forgot himself in
part, so that the day with him passed faster than at the farm-house,
where life and its interests seemed suddenly to have stopped. Nothing
had power to rouse Helen, who never realized how much she loved her
young sister until now, when she listlessly put to rights the room which
had been theirs so long, but which was now hers alone. It was a sad task
picking up that disordered chamber, bearing so many traces of Katy, and
Helen’s heart ached terribly as she hung away the little pink calico
dressing-gown in which Katy had looked so prettily, and picked up from
the floor the pile of skirts lying just where they had been left the
previous night; but when it came to the little half-worn slippers which
had been thrown one here and another there as Katy danced out of them,
she could control herself no longer, and stopping in her work sobbed
bitterly, “Oh, Katy, Katy, how can I live without you!” But tears could
not bring Katy back, and knowing this, Helen dried her eyes ere long and
joined the family below, who like herself were spiritless and sad.

It was some little solace to them all that day to follow Katy in her
journey, saying, she is at Worcester, or Framingham, or Newton, and when
at noon they sat down to their dinner in the tidy kitchen they said,
“She is in Boston,” and the saying so made the time which had elapsed
since the morning seem interminable. Slowly the hours dragged, and at
last, before the sun-setting, Helen, who could bear the loneliness of
home no longer, stole across the fields to Linwood, hoping in Morris’s
companionship to forget her own grief in part. But Morris was a sorry
comforter then. He had ministered as usual to his patients that day,
listening to their complaints and answering patiently their inquiries;
but amid it all he walked as in a maze, hearing nothing except the
words, “I, Katy, take thee, Wilford, to be my wedded husband,” and
seeing nothing but the airy little figure which stood up on tiptoe for
him to kiss its lips at parting. His work for the day was over now, and
he sat alone in his library when Helen came hurriedly in, starting at
sight of his face, and asking if he was ill.

“I have had a hard day’s work,” he said. “I am always tired at night,”
and he tried to smile and appear natural. “Are you very lonely at the
farm-house?” he asked, and then Helen broke out afresh, mourning
sometimes for Katy, and again denouncing Wilford as proud and heartless.

“Positively, Cousin Morris, he acted all the while he was in the church
as if he were doing something of which he was ashamed; and then did you
notice how impatient he seemed when the neighbors were shaking hands
with Katy at the depot, and bidding her good-bye? He looked as if he
thought they had no right to touch her, she was so much their superior,
just because she had married _him_, and he even hurried her away before
Aunt Betsy had time to kiss her. And yet the people think it such a
splendid match for Katy, because he is so rich and generous. Gave the
clergyman fifty dollars and the sexton five, so I heard; but that does
not help him with me. I know it’s wicked, Morris, but I find myself
taking real comfort in hating Wilford Cameron.”

“That is wrong, Helen, all wrong,” and Morris tried to reason with her;
but his arguments this time were not very strong, and he finally said to
her, inadvertently, “If _I_ can forgive Wilford Cameron for marrying our
Katy, you surely ought to do so, for he has hurt _me_ the most.”

“_You_, Morris! YOU, YOU!” Helen kept repeating, standing back still
further and further from him, while strange, overwhelming thoughts
passed like lightning through her mind as she marked the pallid face,
where was written since the morning more than one line of suffering, and
saw in the brown eyes a look such as they were not wont to wear.
“Morris, tell me—tell me truly—did you love my sister Katy?” and with an
impetuous rush Helen knelt beside him, as, laying his head upon the
table he answered,

“Yes, Helen. God forgive me if it were wrong. I _did_ love your sister
Katy, and love her yet, and that is the hardest to bear.”

All the tender pitying woman was roused in Helen, and like a sister she
smoothed the locks of damp, dark hair, keeping a perfect silence as the
strong man, no longer able to bear up, wept like a very child. For a
time Helen felt as if bereft of reason, while earth and sky seemed
blended in one wild chaos as she thought, “Oh, why couldn’t it have
been? Why didn’t you tell her in time?” and at last she said to him, “If
Katy had known it! Oh, Morris, why didn’t you tell her? She never
guessed it, never! If she had—if she had,” Helen’s breath came
chokingly, “I am very sure—yes, I know _it might have been_!”

               “Of all sad words of tongue or pen,
               The saddest are these—it might have been.”

Morris involuntarily thought of these lines, but they only mocked his
sorrow as he answered Helen, “I doubt if you are right; I hope you are
not. Katy loved me as her brother, nothing more, I am confident. Had she
waited till she was older, God only knows what might have been, but now
she is gone and our Father will help me to bear, will help us both, if
we ask him, as we must.”

And then, as only he could do, Morris talked with Helen until she felt
her hardness towards Wilford giving way, while she wondered how Morris
could speak so kindly of one who was his rival.

“Not of myself could I do it,” Morris said; “but I trust in One who says
‘As thy day shall thy strength be,’ and He, you know, never fails.”

There was a fresh bond of sympathy now between Morris and Helen, and the
latter needed no caution against repeating what she had discovered. The
secret was safe with her, and by dwelling on what “might have been” she
forgot to think so much of what _was_, and so the first days after
Katy’s departure were more tolerable than she had thought it possible
for them to be. At the close of the fourth there came a short note from
Katy, who was still in Boston at the Revere, and perfectly happy, she
said, going into ecstasies over her husband, the best in the world, and
certainly the most generous and indulgent. “Such beautiful things as I
am having made,” she wrote, “when I already had more than I needed, and
so I told him, but he only smiled a queer kind of smile as he said ‘Very
true; you do not need them.’ I wonder then why he gets me more. Oh, I
forgot to tell you how much I like his cousin, Mrs. Harvey, who boards
at the Revere, and whom Wilford consults about my dress. I am somewhat
afraid of her, too, she is so grand, but she pets me a great deal and
laughs at my speeches. Mr. Ray is here, and I think him splendid.

“By the way, Helen, I heard him tell Wilford that you had one of the
best shaped heads he ever saw, and that he thought you decidedly good
looking. I must tell you now of the only thing which troubles me in the
least, and I shall get used to that, I suppose. It is so strange Wilford
never told me a word until she came. Think of little Katy Lennox with a
waiting-maid, who jabbers French half the time, for she speaks that
language as well as her own, having been abroad with the family once
before. That is why they sent her to me; they knew her services would be
invaluable in Paris. Her name is Esther, and she came the day after we
did, and brought me such a beautiful mantilla from Wilford’s mother, and
the loveliest dress. Just the pattern was fifty dollars, she said.

“The steamer sails in three days, and I will write again before that
time, sending it by Mr. Ray, who is to stop over one train at Linwood.
Wilford has just come in, and says I have written enough for now, but I
must tell you he has bought me a diamond pin and ear-rings, which
Esther, who knows the value of everything, says never cost less than
five hundred dollars.

                                              “Your loving,
                                                          KATY CAMERON.”

“Five hundred dollars!” and Aunt Betsy held up her hands in horror,
while Helen sat a long time with the letter in her hand, cogitating upon
its contents, and especially upon the part referring to herself, and
what Mark Ray had said of her.

Every human heart is susceptible of flattery, and Helen’s was not an
exception. Still with her ideas of city men she could not at once think
favorably of Mark Ray, just for a few complimentary words which might or
might not have been in earnest, and she found herself looking forward
with nervous dread to the time when he would stop at Linwood, and of
course call on her, as he would bring a letter from Katy.

Very sadly to the inmates of the farm-house rose the morning of the day
when Katy was to sail, and as if they could really see the tall masts of
the vessel which was to bear her away, the eyes of the whole family were
turned often to the eastward with a wistful, anxious gaze, while on
their lips and in their hearts were earnest prayers for the safety of
that ship and the precious freight it bore. But hours, however sad, will
wear themselves away, and so the day went on, succeeded by the night,
until that too had passed and another day had come, the second of Katy’s
ocean life. At the farm-house the work was all done up, and Helen in her
neat gingham dress, with her bands of brown hair bound about her head,
sat sewing, when she was startled by the sound of wheels, and looking up
saw the boy employed to carry packages from the express office, driving
to their door with a trunk, which he said had come that morning from
Boston.

In some surprise Helen hastened to unlock it with the key which she
found appended to it. The trunk was full, and over the whole a linen
towel was folded, while on the top of that lay a letter in Katy’s
handwriting, directed to Helen, who, sitting down upon the floor, broke
the seal and read aloud as follows:

                                             BOSTON, JUNE—, Revere House
                                                 “Nearly midnight.

“MY DEAR SISTER HELEN:—I have just come in from a little party given by
one of Mrs. Harvey’s friends, and I am _so_ tired, for you know I am not
accustomed to such late hours. The party was very pleasant indeed, and
everybody was so kind to me, especially Mr. Ray, who stood by me all the
time, and who somehow seemed to help me, so that I knew just what to do,
and was not awkward at all. I hope not, at least for Wilford’s sake.

“You do not know how grand and dignified he is here in Boston among his
own set; he is so different from what he was in Silverton that I should
be afraid of him if I did not know how much he loves me. He shows that
in every action, and I am perfectly happy, except when I think that
to-morrow night at this time I shall be on the sea, going away from you
all. Here it does not seem far to Silverton, and I often look towards
home, wondering what you are doing, and if you miss me any. I wish I
could see you once before I go, just to tell you all how much I love
you—more than I ever did before, I am sure.

“And now I come to the trunk. I know you will be surprised at its
contents, but you cannot be more so than I was when Wilford said I must
pack them up and send them back—all the dresses you and Marion made.”

“No, oh no!” and Helen felt her strength leave her wrists in one sudden
throb as the letter dropped from her hand, while she tore off the linen
covering and saw for herself that Katy had written truly.

She could not weep then, but her face was white as marble as she again
took up the letter and commenced at the point where she had broken off.

“It seems that people traveling in Europe do not need many things, but
what they have must be just right, and so Mrs. Cameron wrote for Mrs.
Harvey to see to my wardrobe, and if I had not exactly what was proper
she was to procure it. It is very funny that she did not find a single
proper garment among them all, when we thought them so nice. They were
not just the style, she said, and that was very desirable in Mrs.
Wilford Cameron. Somehow she tries to impress me with the idea that
_Mrs. Wilford Cameron_ is a very different person from little Katy
Lennox, but I can see no difference except that I am a great deal
happier and have Wilford all the time.

“Well, as I was telling you, I was measured and fitted, and my figure
praised, until my head was nearly turned, only I did not like the horrid
stays they put on me, squeezing me up and making me feel so stiff. Mrs.
Harvey says no lady does without them, expressing much surprise that I
had never worn them, and so I submit to the powers that be; but every
chance I get here in my room I take them off and throw them on the
floor, where Wilford has stumbled over them two or three times.

“This afternoon the dresses came home, and they do look beautifully,
while every one has belt, and gloves, and ribbons, and sashes, and laces
or muslins to match—fashionable people are so particular about these
things. I have tried them on, and except that I think them too tight,
they fit admirably, and _do_ give me a different air from what Miss
Hazelton’s did. But I really believe I like the old ones best, because
_you_ helped to make them; and when Wilford said I must send them home,
I went where he could not see me and cried, because—well, I hardly know
why I cried, unless I feared you might feel badly. Dearest Helen, don’t,
will you? I love you just as much, and shall remember you the same as if
I wore the dresses. Dearest sister, I can fancy the look that will come
on your face, and I wish I could be present to kiss it away. Imagine me
there, will you? with my arms around your neck, and tell mother not to
mind. Tell her I never loved her so well as now, and that when I come
home from Europe I shall bring her ever so many things. There is a new
black silk for her in the trunk, and one for each of the aunties, while
for you there is a lovely brown, which Wilford said was just your style,
telling me to select as nice a silk as I pleased, and this he did, I
think, because he guessed I had been crying. He asked what made my eyes
so red, and when I would not tell him he took me with him to the silk
store and bade me get what I liked. Oh, he is the dearest, kindest
husband, and I love him all the more because I am the least bit afraid
of him.

“And now I must stop, for Wilford says so. Dear Helen, dear all of you,
I can’t help crying as I say good-bye. Remember little Katy, and if she
ever did anything bad, don’t lay it up against her. Kiss Morris and
Uncle Ephraim, and say how much I love them. Darling sister, darling
mother, good-bye.”

This was Katy’s letter, and it brought a gush of tears from the four
women remembered so lovingly in it, the mother and the aunts stealing
away to weep in secret, without ever stopping to look at the new dresses
sent to them by Wilford Cameron. They were very soft, very handsome,
especially Helen’s rich golden brown, and as she looked at it she felt a
thrill of satisfaction in knowing it was hers, but this quickly passed
as she took out one by one the garments she had folded with so much
care, wondering when Katy would wear each one and where she would be.

“She will never wear them, never—they are not fine enough for her now!”
she exclaimed, and as she just then came upon the little plaid, she laid
her head upon the trunk lid, while her tears dropped like rain in among
the discarded articles condemned by Wilford Cameron.

It seemed to her like Katy’s grave, and she was sobbing bitterly, when a
step sounded outside the window, and a voice called her name. It was
Morris, and lifting up her head Helen said passionately,

“Oh, Morris, look! he has sent back all Katy’s clothes, which you bought
and I worked so hard to make. They were not good enough for his wife to
wear, and so he insulted us. Oh, Katy, I never fully realized till now
how wholly she is lost to us!”

“Helen, Helen,” Morris kept saying, trying to stop her, for close behind
him was Mark Ray, who heard her distinctly, and glancing in, saw her
kneeling before the trunk, her pale face stained with tears, and her
dark eyes shining with excitement.

Mark Ray understood it at once, feeling indignant at Wilford for thus
unnecessarily wounding the sensitive girl, whose expression, as she sat
there upon the floor, with her face upturned to Morris, haunted him for
months. Mark was sorry for her—so sorry that his first impulse was to go
quietly away, and so spare her the mortification of knowing that he had
witnessed that little scene; but it was now too late. As she finished
speaking her eye fell on him, and coloring scarlet she struggled to her
feet, and covering her face with her hands wept still more violently.
Mark was in a dilemma, and whispered softly to Morris, “I think I will
leave. You can tell her all I had to say;” but Helen heard him, and
mastering her agitation, she said to him,

“Please, Mr. Ray, don’t go—not yet at least, not till I have asked you
of Katy. Did you see her off? Has she gone?”

Thus importuned Mark Ray came in, and sitting down where his boot almost
touched the new brown silk, he very politely began to answer her rapid
questions, putting her entirely at her ease by his pleasant, affable
manner, and making her forget the littered appearance of the room, as
she listened to his praises of her sister, who, he said, seemed so very
happy, and attracted universal admiration wherever she went. No allusion
whatever was made to the trunk during the time of Mark’s stay, which was
not long. If he took the next train to New York, he had but an hour more
to spend, and feeling that Helen would rather he should spend it at
Linwood he soon arose to go. Offering his hand to Helen, there passed
from his eyes into hers a look which had over her a strangely quieting
influence, and prepared her for a remark which otherwise might have
seemed out of place.

“I have known Wilford Cameron for years; he is my best friend, and I
respect him as a brother. In some things he may be peculiar, but he will
make your sister a kind husband. He loves her devotedly, I know,
choosing her from the throng of ladies who would gladly have taken her
place. I hope you will like him for _my_ sake as well as Katy’s.”

His warm hand unclasped from Helen’s, and with another good-bye he was
gone, without seeing either Mrs. Lennox, Aunt Hannah or Aunt Betsy. This
was not the time for extending his acquaintance, he knew, and he went
away with Morris, feeling that the farm-house, so far as he could judge,
was not exactly what Wilford had pictured it. “But then he came for a
wife, and I did not,” he thought, while Helen’s face came before him as
it looked up to Morris, and he wondered, were he obliged to choose
between the sisters, which he should prefer. During the few days passed
in Boston he had become more than half in love with Katy himself, almost
envying his friend the pretty little creature he had won. She was very
beautiful and very fascinating in her simplicity, but there was
something in Helen’s face more attractive than mere beauty, and Mark
said to Morris as they walked along,

“Miss Lennox is not much like her sister.”

“Not much, no; but Helen is a splendid girl—more strength of character,
perhaps, than Katy, who is younger than her years even. She has always
been petted from babyhood; it will take time or some great sorrow to
show what she really is.”

This was Morris’s reply, and the two then proceeded on in silence until
they reached the boundary line between Morris’s farm and Uncle
Ephraim’s, where they found the deacon mending a bit of broken fence,
his coat lying on a pile of stones, and his wide, blue cotton trowsers
hanging loosely around him. When told who Mark was, and that he brought
news of Katy, he greeted him cordially, and sitting down upon his fence
listened to all Mark had to say. Between the old and young man there
seemed at once a mutual liking, the former saying to himself as Mark
went on, and he resumed his work,

“I most wish it was this chap with Katy on the sea. I like his looks the
best,” while Mark’s thoughts were,

“Will need not be ashamed of that man, though I don’t suppose _I_ should
really want him coming suddenly in among a drawing-room full of guests.”

Morris did not feel much like entertaining Mark, but Mark was fully
competent to entertain himself, and thought the hour spent at Linwood a
very pleasant one, half wishing for some excuse to tarry longer; but
there was none, and so at the appointed time he bade Morris good-bye and
went on his way to New York.




                              CHAPTER XII.
                     FIRST MONTHS OF MARRIED LIFE.


If Katy’s letters, written, one on board the steamer and another from
London, were to be trusted, she was as nearly perfectly happy as a young
bride well can be, and the people at the farm-house felt themselves more
and more kindly disposed towards Wilford Cameron with each letter
received. They were going soon into the northern part of England, and
from thence into Scotland, Katy wrote from London, and two weeks after
found them comfortably settled at the inn at Alnwick, near to Alnwick
Castle. Wilford had seemed very anxious to get there, leaving London
before Katy was quite ready, and hurrying across the country until
Alnwick was reached. He had been there before, years ago, he said, but
no one seemed to recognize him, though all paid due respect to the
distinguished looking American and his beautiful young wife. An entrance
into Alnwick Castle was easily obtained, and Katy felt that all her
girlish dreams of grandeur and magnificence were more than realized here
in this home of the Percys, where ancient and modern styles of
architecture and furnishing were so blended together. She would never
tire of that place, she thought, but Wilford’s taste led him elsewhere,
and he took more delight in wandering around St. Mary’s church, which
stood upon a hill commanding a view of the castle and of the surrounding
country for miles away. Here Katy also came, rambling with him through
the village grave-yard where slept the dust of centuries, the grey,
mossy tomb-stones bearing date backward for more than a hundred years,
their quaint inscriptions both puzzling and amusing Katy, who studied
them by the hour.

One quiet summer morning, however, when the heat was unusually great,
she felt too listless to wander about, and so sat upon the grass,
listening to the birds as they sang above her head, while Wilford, at
some distance from her, stood leaning against a tree and thinking sad,
regretful thoughts, as his eye rested upon the rough headstone at his
feet.

“Genevra Lambert, aged 22,” was the lettering upon it, and as he read it
a feeling of reproach was in his heart, while he said, “I hope I am not
glad to know that she is dead.”

He had come to Alnwick for the sole purpose of finding that humble
grave—of assuring himself that after life’s fitful fever, Genevra
Lambert slept quietly, forgetful of the wrong once done to her by him.
It is true he had not doubted her death before, but as seeing was
believing, so now he felt sure of it, and plucking from the turf above
her a little flower growing there, he went back to Katy and sitting down
beside her with his arm around her waist, tried to devise some way of
telling her what he had promised himself he would tell her there in that
very yard, where Genevra was buried. But the task was harder now than
before. Katy was so happy with him, trusting his love so fully that he
dared not lift the veil and read to her that page hinted at once in
Silverton, when they sat beneath the butternut tree, with the fresh
young grass springing around them. Then she was not his wife, and the
fear that she would not be if he told her all had kept him silent, but
now she was his alone; nothing could undo that, and there, in the shadow
of the grey old church through whose aisles Genevra had been borne out
to where the rude headstone was gleaming in the English sunlight, it
seemed meet that he should tell the sad story. And Katy would have
forgiven him then, for not a shadow of regret had darkened her life
since it was linked with his, and in her perfect love she could have
pardoned much. But Wilford did not tell. It was not needful, he made
himself believe—not necessary for her ever to know that once he met a
maiden called Genevra, almost as beautiful as she, but never so beloved.
_No, never._ Wilford said that truly, when that night he bent over his
sleeping Katy, comparing her face with Genevra’s, and his love for her
with his love for Genevra.

Wilford was very fond of his girlish wife, and very proud of her, too,
when strangers paused, as they often did, to look back after her. Thus
far nothing had arisen to mar the happiness of his first weeks of
married life, except the letters from Silverton, over which Katy always
cried, until he sometimes wished that the family could not write. But
they could and they did; even Aunt Betsy inclosed in Helen’s letter a
note, wonderful both in orthography and composition, and concluding with
the remark that “she would be glad when Catherine returned and was
settled in a home of her own, as she would then have a new place to
visit.”

There was a dark frown on Wilford’s face, and for a moment he felt
tempted to withhold the note from Katy, but this he could not do then,
so he gave it into her bands, watching her as with burning cheeks, she
read it through, and asking her at its close why she looked so red.

“Oh, Wilford,” and she crept closely to him, “Aunt Betsy spells so
queerly, that I was wishing you would not always open my letters first.
Do all husbands do so?”

It was the only time Katy had ventured to question a single act of his,
submitting without a word to whatever was his will. Wilford knew that
his father would never have presumed to break a seal belonging to his
mother, but he had broken Katy’s, and he should continue breaking them,
so he answered, laughingly,

“Why, yes, I guess they do. My little wife has surely no secrets to hide
from me?”

“No secrets,” Katy answered, “only I did not want you to see Aunt
Betsy’s letter, that’s all.”

“I did not marry Aunt Betsy—I married you,” was Wilford’s reply, which
meant far more than Katy guessed.

With three thousand miles between him and his wife’s relatives, Wilford
could endure to think of them; but whenever letters came to Katy bearing
the Silverton postmark, he was conscious of a far different sensation
from what he experienced when the postmark was New York and the
handwriting that of his own family. But not in any way did this feeling
manifest itself to Katy, who, as she always wrote to Helen, was very,
very happy, and never more so, perhaps, than while they were at Alnwick,
where, as if he had something for which to atone, he was unusually kind
and indulgent, caressing her with unwonted tenderness, and making her
ask him once if he loved her a great deal more now than when they were
first married.

“Yes, darling, a great deal more,” was Wilford’s answer, as he kissed
her upturned face, and then went for the last time to Genevra’s grave;
for on the morrow they were to leave the neighborhood of Alnwick for the
heather blooms of Scotland.

There was a trip to Edinburgh, a stormy passage across the Straits of
Dover, a two months’ sojourn in Paris, and then they went to Rome, where
Wilford intended to pass the winter, journeying in the spring through
different parts of Europe. He was in no haste to return to America; he
would rather stay where he could have Katy all to himself, away from her
family and his own. But it was not so to be, and not very long after his
arrival at Rome there came a letter from his mother apprising him of his
father’s dangerous illness, and asking him to come home at once. The
elder Cameron had not been well since Wilford left the country, and the
physician was fearful that the disease had assumed a consumptive form,
Mrs. Cameron wrote, adding that her husband’s only anxiety was to see
his son again. To this there was no demur, and about the first of
December, six months from the time he had sailed, Wilford arrived in
Boston, having taken a steamer for that city. His first act was to
telegraph for news of his father, receiving in reply that he was better;
the alarming symptoms had disappeared, and there was now great hope of
his recovery.

“We might have stayed longer in Europe,” Katy said, feeling a little
chill of disappointment—not that her father-in-law was better, but at
being called home for nothing, when her life abroad was so happy and
free from care.

Somehow the atmosphere of America seemed different from what it used to
be. It was colder, bluer, the little lady said, tapping her foot
uneasily and looking from her windows at the Revere out upon the snowy
streets, through which the wintry wind was blowing in heavy gales.

“Yes, it is a heap colder,” she sighed, as she returned to the large
chair which Esther had drawn for her before the cheerful fire, charging
her disquiet to the weather, but never dreaming of imputing it to her
husband, who was far more its cause than was the December cold.

He, too, though glad of his father’s improvement, was sorry to have been
recalled for nothing to a country which brought his old life back again,
with all its forms and ceremonies, and revived his dread lest Katy
should not acquit herself as was becoming Mrs. Wilford Cameron. In his
selfishness he had kept her almost wholly to himself, so that the polish
she was to acquire from her travels abroad was not as perceptible as he
could desire. Katy was Katy still, in spite of London, Paris, or Rome.
To be sure there was about her a little more maturity and
self-assurance, but in all essential points she was the same: and
Wilford winced as he thought how the free, impulsive manner which, among
the Scottish hills, where there was no one to criticize, had been so
charming to him, would shock his lady mother and sister Juno. And this
it was which made him moody and silent, replying hastily to Katy when
she said to him, “Please, Wilford, telegraph to Helen to be with mother
at the West depot when we pass there to-morrow. The train stops five
minutes, you know, and I want to see them so much. Will you, Wilford?”

She had come up to him now, and was standing behind him, with her hands
upon his shoulder; so she did not see the expression of his face as he
answered quickly.

“Yes, yes.”

A moment after he quitted the room, and it was then that Katy, standing
before the window, charged the day with what was strictly Wilford’s
fault. Returning at last to her chair she went off into a reverie as to
the new home to which she was going and the new friends she was to meet,
wondering what they would think of her, and if they would like her. Once
she had said to Wilford,

“Which of your sisters shall I like best?”

And Wilford had answered her by asking,

“Which do you like best, _books_ or going to parties in full dress?”

“Oh, parties and dress,” Katy had said, and Wilford had then rejoined,

“You will like Juno best, for she is all fashion and gayety, while
Blue-Bell prefers her books and the quiet of her own room.”

Katy felt afraid of Bell, and in fact, now that they were so near, she
felt afraid of them all, notwithstanding Esther’s assurances that they
could not help loving her. During the six months they had been together
Esther had learned to feel for her young lady that strong affection
which sometimes exists between mistress and servant. Everything which
she could do for her she did, smoothing as much as possible the meeting
which she also dreaded, for though the Camerons were too proud to
express before her their opinion of Wilford’s choice, she had guessed it
readily, and pitied the young wife brought up with ideas so different
from those of her husband’s family. More accustomed to Wilford’s moods
than Katy, she saw that something was the matter, and it prompted her to
unusual attentions, stirring the fire into a cheerful blaze and bringing
a stool for Katy, who, in blissful ignorance of her husband’s real
feelings, sat waiting his return from the telegraph office whither she
supposed he had gone, and building pleasant pictures of to-morrow’s
meeting with her mother and Helen, and possibly Dr. Morris, if not Uncle
Ephraim himself.

So absorbed was she in her reverie as not to hear Wilford’s step as he
came in, but when he stood behind her and took her head playfully
between his hands, she started up, feeling that the weather had changed;
it was not as cold and dreary in Boston as she imagined, and laying her
head on Wilford’s shoulder, she said,

“You went out to telegraph, didn’t you?”

He had gone out with the intention of telegraphing as she desired, but
in the hall below he had met with an old acquaintance who talked with
him so long that he entirely forgot his errand until Katy recalled it to
his mind, making him feel very uncomfortable as he frankly told her of
his forgetfulness.

“It is too late now,” he added, “besides you could only see them for a
moment, just long enough to make you cry—a thing I do not greatly
desire, inasmuch as I wish my wife to look her best when I present her
to my family, and with red eyes she couldn’t, you know.”

Katy knew it was settled, and choking back the tears, she tried to
listen, while Wilford, having fairly broken the ice with regard to his
family, told her how anxious he was that she should make a good first
impression upon his mother. Did Katy remember that Mrs. Morey whom they
met at Paris, and could she not throw a little of _her air_ into her
manner, that is, could she not drop her girlishness when in the presence
of others and be a little more dignified? When alone with him he liked
to have her just what she was, a loving, affectionate little wife, but
the world looked on such things differently. Would Katy try?

Wilford when he commenced had no definite idea as to what he should say,
and without meaning it he made Katy moan piteously.

“I don’t know what you mean. I would do anything if I knew how. Tell me,
how _shall_ I be dignified?”

She was crying so hard that Wilford, while mentally calling himself a
fool and a brute, could only try to comfort her, telling her she need
not be anything but what she was—that his mother and sisters would love
her just as he did—and that daily association with them would teach her
all that was necessary.

Katy’s tears were stopped at last; but the frightened, anxious look did
not leave her face, even though Wilford tried his best to divert her
mind. A nervous terror of her new relations had gained possession of her
heart, and nearly the entire night she lay awake, pondering in her mind
what Wilford had said, and thinking how terrible it would be if he
should be disappointed in her after all. The consequence of this was
that a very white tired face sat opposite Wilford next morning at the
breakfast served in their private parlor; nor did it look much fresher
even after they were in the cars and rolling out of Boston. But when
Worcester was reached, and the old home way-marks began to grow
familiar, the color came stealing back, until the cheeks burned with an
unnatural red, and the blue eyes fairly danced as they rested on the
hills of Silverton.

“Only three miles from mother and Helen! Oh, if I could go there!” Katy
thought, working her fingers nervously; but the express train did not
pause there, and it went so swiftly by the depot that Katy could hardly
distinguish who was standing there, whether friend or stranger.

But when at last they came to West Silverton, and the long train slowly
stopped, the first object she saw was Dr. Morris, driving down from the
village. He had no intention of going to the depot, and only checked his
horse a moment, lest it should prove restive if too near the engine; but
when a clear young voice called from the window, “Morris! oh, Cousin
Morris! I’ve come!” his heart gave a great throb, for he knew whose
voice it was and whose the little hand beckoning to him. He had supposed
her far away beneath Italian skies, for at the farm-house no
intelligence had been received of her intended return, and in much
surprise he reined up to the rear door, and throwing his lines to a boy,
went forward to where Katy stood, her face glowing with delight as she
flew into his arms, wholly forgetful of the last night’s lecture on
dignity, and also forgetful of Wilford, standing close beside her. He
had not tried to hold her back when, at the sight of Morris, she sprang
away from him; but he followed after, biting his lip, and wishing she
had a little more discretion. Surely it was not necessary to half
strangle Dr. Grant as she was doing, kissing his hand after she had
kissed his face a full half dozen times, and all the people looking on.
But Katy did not care for people. She only knew that Morris was
there—the Morris whom, in her great happiness abroad, she had perhaps
slighted by not writing directly to him but once. In Wilford’s
sheltering care she had not felt the need of this good cousin, as she
used to do; but she was so glad to see him, wondering why he looked so
thin and sad. Was he sick? she asked, with a pitying look, which made
him shiver as he answered,

“No, not sick, though tired, perhaps, as I have at present an unusual
amount of work to do.”

And this was true—he was unusually busy. But that was not the cause of
his thin face, which others than Katy remarked. Helen’s words, “It might
have been,” spoken to him on the night of Katy’s bridal, had never left
his mind, much as he had tried to dislodge them. Some men can love a
dozen times; but it was not so with Morris. He could overcome his love
so that it should not be a sin, but no other could ever fill the place
where Katy had been; and as he looked along the road through life he
felt that he must travel it alone. Truly, if Katy were not yet passing
through the fire, he was, and it had left its mark upon him, purifying
as it burned, and bringing his every act into closer submission to his
God. Only Helen and Marian Hazelton interpreted aright that look upon
his face, and knew it came from the hunger of his heart, but they kept
silence; while others said that he was working far too hard, urging him
to abate his unwearied labors, for they would not lose their young
physician yet. But Morris smiled his patient, kindly smile on all their
fears and went his way, doing his work as one who knew he must render
strict account for the popularity he was daily gaining, both in his own
town and those around. He could think of Katy now without a sin, but he
was not thinking of her when she came so unexpectedly upon him, and for
an instant she almost bore his breath away in her vehement joy.

Quick to note a change in those he knew, he saw that her form was not
quite so full, nor her cheeks so round; but she was weary with the
voyage, and knowing how sea-sickness will wear upon one’s strength,
Morris imputed it wholly to that, and believed she was, as she professed
to be, perfectly happy.

“Come, Katy, we must go now,” Wilford said, as the bell rang its first
alarm, and the passengers, some with sandwiches and some with fried
cakes in their hands, ran back to find their seats.

“Yes, I know, but I have not asked half I meant to. Oh, how I want to go
home with you, Morris,” Katy exclaimed, again throwing her arms around
the doctor’s neck as she bade him good-bye, and sent fresh messages of
love to the friends at home, who, had they known she was to be there at
that time, would have walked the entire distance for the sake of looking
once more into her dear face.

“I intended to have brought them heaps of things,” she said, “but we
came home so suddenly I had no time. Here, take Helen this. Tell her it
is _real_,” and the impulsive creature drew from her finger a small
diamond set in black enamel, which Wilford had bought in Paris.

“She did not need it; she had two more, and she was sure Wilford would
not mind,” she said, turning to him for his approbation.

But Wilford did mind, and his face indicated as much, although he tried
to be natural as he replied, “Certainly, send it if you like.”

In her excitement Katy did not observe it, but Morris did, and he at
first declined taking it, saying Helen had no use for it, and would be
better pleased with something not half as valuable. Katy, however,
insisted, appealing to Wilford, who, ashamed of his first emotion, now
seemed quite as anxious as Katy herself, until Morris placed the ring in
his purse, and then bade Katy hasten or she would certainly be left. One
more wave of the hand, one more kiss thrown from the window, and the
train moved on, Katy feeling like a different creature for having seen
some one from home.

“I am so glad I saw him—so glad I sent the ring, for now they will know
I am the same Katy Lennox, and I think Helen sometimes feared I might
get proud with you,” she said, while Wilford pulled her rich fur around
her, smiling to see how bright and pretty she was looking since that
meeting with Dr. Grant. “It was better than medicine,” Katy said, when
beyond Springfield he referred to it a second time, and leaning her head
upon his shoulder she fell into a refreshing sleep, from which she did
not waken until New York was reached, and Wilford, lifting her gently
up, whispered to her, “Come, darling, we are home at last.”




                             CHAPTER XIII.
                   KATY’S FIRST EVENING IN NEW YORK.


The elder Cameron was really better, and more than once he had regretted
recalling his son, who he knew had contemplated a longer stay abroad.
But that could not now be helped. Wilford had arrived in Boston, as his
telegram of yesterday announced—he would be at home to-day; and No.——
Fifth Avenue was all the morning and a portion of the afternoon the
scene of unusual excitement, for both Mrs. Cameron and her daughters
wished to give the six months’ wife a good impression of her new home.
At first they thought of inviting company to dinner, but to this the
father objected. “Katy should not be troubled the first day,” he said;
“it was bad enough for her to meet them all; they could ask Mark if they
chose, but no one else.”

And so only Mark Ray was invited to the dinner, gotten up as elaborately
as if a princess had been expected instead of little Katy, trembling in
every joint when, about four P. M., Wilford awoke her at the depot and
whispered, “Come, darling, we are home at last.”

“Why do you shiver so?” he asked, wrapping her cloak around her, and
almost lifting her from the car.

“I don’t—know. I guess—I’m cold,” and Katy drew a long breath as she
thought of Silverton and the farm-house, wishing that she was going into
its low-walled kitchen, instead of the handsome carriage, where the
cushions were so soft and yielding, and the whole effect so grand.

“What would our folks say?” she kept repeating to herself as she drove
along the streets, where they were beginning to light the street lamps,
for the December day was dark and cloudy. It seemed so like a dream,
that she, who once had picked huckle-berries on the Silverton hills, and
bound coarse heavy shoes to buy herself a pink gingham dress, should now
be riding in her carriage toward the home which she knew was
magnificent; and Katy’s tears fell like rain as, nestling close to
Wilford, who asked what was the matter, she whispered, “I can hardly
believe that it is I—it is so unreal.”

“Please don’t cry,” Wilford rejoined, brushing her tears away. “You know
I don’t like your eyes to be red.”

With a great effort Katy kept her tears back, and was very calm when
they reached the brown-stone front, far enough up town to save it from
the slightest approach to plebeianism. In the hall the chandelier was
burning, and as the carriage stopped a flame of light seemed suddenly to
burst from every window as the gas heads were turned up, so that Katy
caught glimpses of rich silken curtains and costly lace as she went up
the steps, clinging to Wilford and looking ruefully around for Esther,
who had disappeared through the basement door. Another moment and they
stood within the marbled hall, Katy conscious of nothing
definite—nothing but a vague atmosphere of refined elegance, and that a
richly-dressed lady came out to meet them, kissing Wilford quietly and
calling him her son; that the same lady turned to her saying kindly,
“And this is my new daughter?”

Then Katy came to life, and did that, at the very thought of which she
shuddered when a few months’ experience had taught her the temerity of
the act—she wound her arms impulsively around Mrs. Cameron’s neck,
rumpling her point lace collar, and sadly displacing the coiffure of the
astonished lady, who had seldom received so genuine a greeting as that
which Katy gave her, kissing her lips and whispering softly, “I love you
now, because you are Wilford’s mother, but by and by because you are
mine. And you _will_ love me some because I am his wife.”

Wilford was horrified, particularly when he saw how startled his mother
looked as she tried to release herself and adjust her tumbled head-gear.
It was not what he had hoped, nor what his mother had expected, for she
was unaccustomed to such demonstrations; but under the circumstances
Katy could not have done better. There was a tender spot in Mrs.
Cameron’s heart, and Katy touched it, making her feel a throb of
affection for the childish creature suing for her love.

“Yes, darling, I love you now,” she said, removing Katy’s clinging arms
and taking care that they should not enfold her a second time. “You are
tired and cold,” she continued; “and had better go at once to your
rooms. I will send Esther up. There is plenty of time to dress for
dinner,” and with a wave of her hand she dismissed Katy up the stairs,
noticing as she went the exquisite softness of her fur cloak; but
thinking it too heavy a garment for her slight figure, and noticing,
too, the graceful ankle and foot which the little high-heeled gaiter
showed to good advantage. “I did not see her face distinctly, but she
has a well-turned instep and walks easily,” was the report she carried
to her daughters, who, in their own room over Katy’s, were dressing for
dinner.

“She will undoubtedly make a good dancer, then, unless, like Dr. Grant,
she is too blue for that,” Juno said, while Bell shrugged her shoulders,
congratulating herself that she had a mind above such frivolous matters
as dancing and well-turned insteps, and wondering if Katy cared in the
least for books.

“Couldn’t you see her face at all, mother?” Juno asked.

“Scarcely; but the glimpse I did get was satisfactory. I think she is
pretty.”

And this was all the sisters could ascertain until their toilets were
finished, and they went down into the library, where their brother
waited for them, kissing them both affectionately, and complimenting
them on their good looks.

“I wish we could say the same of you,” Juno answered, playfully pulling
his moustache; “but upon my word, Will, you are fast settling down into
an oldish married man, even turning gray,” and she ran her fingers
through his dark hair, where there was now and then a thread of silver.
“Disappointed in your domestic relations, eh?” she continued, looking
him archly in the face.

Wilford was rather proud of his good looks, and during his sojourn
aboard, Katy had not helped him any in overcoming this weakness, but on
the contrary, had fed his vanity by constant flattery. And still he was
himself conscious of not looking quite as well as usual just now, for
the sea voyage had tired him as well as Katy, but he did not care to be
told of it, and Juno’s ill-timed remarks roused him at once,
particularly as they reflected somewhat on Katy.

“I assure you I am not disappointed,” he answered, “and the six months
of my married life have been the happiest I ever knew. Katy is more than
I expected her to be.”

Juno elevated her eyebrows slightly, but made no direct reply, while
Bell began to ask about Paris and the places he had visited.

Meanwhile Katy had been ushered into her room, which was directly over
the library, and separated from Mrs. Cameron’s only by a range of
closets and presses, a portion of which were to be appropriated to her
own use. Great pains had been taken to make her rooms attractive, and as
the large bay window in the library below extended to the third story,
it was really the pleasantest chamber in the house. To Katy it was
perfect, and her first exclamation was one of delight.

“Oh, how pleasant, how beautiful!” she cried, skipping across the soft
carpet to the warm fire blazing in the grate. “A bay window, too, when I
like them so much. I shall be happy here.”

But happy as she was, Katy could not help feeling tired, and she sank
into one of the luxurious easy-chairs, wishing she could stay there all
the evening instead of going down to that formidable dinner with her new
relations. How she dreaded it, especially when she remembered that Mrs.
Cameron had said there would be plenty of time to _dress_—a thing which
Katy hated, the process was so tiresome, particularly to-night. Surely
her handsome traveling dress, made in Paris, was good enough, and she
was about settling in her own mind to venture upon wearing it, when
Esther demolished her castle at once.

“Wear your traveling habit!” she exclaimed, “when the young ladies,
especially Miss Juno, are so particular about their dinner costume.
There would be no end to the scolding I should get for suffering it,”
and she began good-naturedly to remove her mistress’s collar and pin,
while Katy, standing up, sighed as she said, “I wish I was in Silverton
to-night. I could wear anything there. What must I put on? How I dread
it!” and she began to shiver again.

Fortunately for Katy, Esther had been in the family long enough to know
just what they regarded proper, as by this means the dress selected was
sure to please. It was very becoming to Katy, and having been made in
Paris was not open to criticism.

“Very pretty indeed,” was Mrs. Cameron’s verdict, when at half-past five
she came in to see her daughter, kissing her cheek and stroking her
head, wholly unadorned except by the short, silken curls which could not
be coaxed to grow faster than they chose, and which had sometimes
annoyed Wilford, they made his wife seem so young beside him. Mrs.
Cameron was annoyed, too, for she had no idea of a head except as it was
connected with a hair-dresser, and her annoyance showed itself as she
asked,

“Did you have your hair cut on purpose?”

But when Katy explained, she answered pleasantly,

“Never mind, it is a fault which will mend every day, only it makes you
look like a child.”

“I am eighteen and a half,” Katy said, feeling a lump rising in her
throat, for she guessed that her mother-in-law was not quite pleased
with her hair.

For herself, she liked it, it was so easy to brush and fix. She should
go wild if she had to submit to all Esther had told her of hair-dressing
and what it involved.

Mrs. Cameron had asked if she would not like to see Mr. Cameron, the
elder, before going down to dinner, and Katy had answered that she
would; so as soon as Esther had smoothed a refractory fold and brought
her handkerchief, she followed to the room where Wilford’s father was
sitting. He might not have felt complimented could he have known that
something in his appearance reminded Katy of Uncle Ephraim. He was not
nearly as old or as tall, nor was his hair as white, but the
resemblance, if there were any, lay in the smile with which he greeted
Katy, calling her his youngest child, and drawing her closely to him.

It was remarked of Mr. Cameron that since their babyhood he had never
kissed one of his own children; but when Katy, who looked upon such a
salutation as a matter of course, put up her rosy lips, making the first
advance, he kissed her twice. Hearty, honest kisses they were, for the
man was strongly drawn towards the young girl, who said to him timidly,

“I am glad to have a father—mine died before I could remember him. May I
call you so?”

“Yes, yes; God bless you, my child,” and Mr. Cameron’s voice shook as he
said it, for neither Bell nor Juno were wont to address him just as Katy
did—Katy, standing close to him, with her hand upon his shoulder and her
kiss fresh upon his lips.

She had already crept a long way into his heart, and he took her hand
from his shoulder and holding it between his own, said to her,

“I did not think you were so small or young. You are my little daughter,
my baby, instead of my son’s wife. How do you ever expect to fulfill the
duties of Mrs. Wilford Cameron?

“It’s my short hair, sir. I am not so young,” Katy answered, her eyes
filling with tears as she began to wish back the thick curls Helen cut
away when the fever was at its height.

“Never mind, child,” Mr. Cameron rejoined playfully. “Youth is no
reproach; there’s many a one would give their right hand to be young
like you. Juno for instance, who is—”

“Hus-band!” came reprovingly from Mrs. Cameron, spoken as only she could
speak it, with a prolonged buzzing sound on the first syllable, and
warning the husband that he was venturing too far.

“It is time to go down if Mrs. Cameron sees the young ladies before
dinner,” she said, a little stiffly; whereupon her better half startled
Katy with the exclamation,

“Mrs. Cameron! Thunder and lightning! wife, call her Katy, and don’t go
into any nonsense of that kind.”

The lady reddened, but said nothing until she reached the hall, when she
whispered to Katy, apologetically,

“Don’t mind it. He is rather irritable since his illness, and sometimes
makes use of coarse language.”

Katy had been a little frightened at the outburst, but she liked Mr.
Cameron notwithstanding, and her heart was lighter as she went down to
the library, where Wilford met her at the door, and taking her on his
arm led her in to his sisters, holding her back as he presented her,
lest she should assault them as she had his mother. But Katy felt no
desire to hug the tall, queenly girl whom Wilford introduced as Juno,
and whose black eyes seemed to read her through as she offered her hand
and very daintily kissed her forehead, murmuring something about a
welcome to New York. Bell came next, broad-faced, plainer-looking Bell,
who yet had many pretentions to beauty, but whose manner, if possible,
was frostier, cooler than her sister’s. Of the two Katy liked Juno best,
for there was about her a flash and sparkle very fascinating to one who
had never seen anything of the kind, and did not know that much of this
vivacity was the result of patient study and practice. Katy would have
known they were high bred, as the world defines high breeding, and
something in their manner reminded her of the ladies she had seen
abroad, ladies in whose veins lordly blood was flowing. She could not
help feeling uncomfortable in their presence, especially as she felt
that Juno’s black eyes were on her constantly. Not that she could ever
meet them looking at her, for they darted away the instant hers were
raised, but she knew just when they returned to her again, and how
closely they were scanning her.

“Your wife looks tired, Will. Let her sit down,” Bell said, herself
wheeling the easy-chair nearer to the fire, while Wilford placed Katy in
it; then, thinking she would get on better if he were not there, he left
the room, and Katy was alone with her new sisters.

Juno had examined her dress and found no fault with it, simply because
it was Parisian made; while Bell had examined her head, deciding that
there might be something in it, though she doubted it, but that at all
events short hair was very becoming to it, showing all its fine
proportions, and half deciding to have her own locks cut away. Juno had
a similar thought, wondering if it were the Paris fashion, and if she
would look as young in proportion as Katy did were her hair worn on her
neck.

With their brother’s departure the tongues of both the girls were
loosened, and standing near to Katy they began to question her of what
she had seen, Juno asking if she did not hate to leave Italy, and did
not wish herself back again. Wholly truthful, Katy answered, “Oh, yes, I
would rather be there than home.”

“Complimentary to us, very,” Bell murmured audibly in French, blushing
as Katy’s eyes were lifted quickly to hers, and she knew she was
understood.

If there was anything which Katy liked more than another in the way of
study, it was French. She had excelled in it at Canandaigua, and while
abroad had taken great pains to acquire a pure pronunciation, so that
she spoke it with a good deal of fluency, and readily comprehended Bell.

“I did not mean to be rude,” she said, earnestly. “I liked Italy so
much, and we expected to stay longer; but that does not hinder my liking
to be here. I hope I did not offend you.”

“Certainly not; you are an honest little puss,” Bell replied, placing
her hand caressingly upon the curly head laying back so wearily on the
chair. “Here in New York we have a bad way of not telling the whole
truth, but you will soon be used to it.”

“Used to not telling the truth! Oh, I hope not!” and this time the blue
eyes lifted so wonderingly to Bell’s face had in them a startled look.

“Simpleton!” was Juno’s mental comment, while Bell’s was, “I like the
child,” as she continued to smooth the golden curls and wind them round
her finger, wondering if Katy had a taste for metaphysics, that being
the last branch of science which she had taken up.

“I suppose you find Will a pattern husband,” Juno said after a moment’s
pause, and Katy replied, “There never could be a better, I am sure, and
I have been very happy.”

“Has he never said one cross word to you in all these six months?” was
Juno’s next question, to which Katy answered truthfully, “Never.”

“And lets you do as you please?”

“Yes, just as I please,” Katy replied, while Juno continued, “He must
have changed greatly then from what he used to be; but marriage has
probably improved him. He tells you all his _secrets_, too, I presume?”

Anxious that Wilford should appear well in every light, Katy replied at
random, “Yes, if he has any.”

“Well, then,” and in Juno’s black eyes there was a wicked look, “perhaps
you will tell me who was or is the original of that picture he guards so
carefully.”

“What picture?” and Katy looked up inquiringly, while Juno, with a
little sarcastic laugh, continued: “Oh, he has not told you then. I
thought he would not, he was so angry when he saw me with it three or
four years ago. I found it in his room where he had accidentally left
it, and was looking at it when he came in. It was the picture of a young
girl who must have been very beautiful, and I did not blame Will for
loving her if he ever did, but he need not have been so indignant at me
for wishing to know who it was. I never saw him so angry or so much
disturbed. I hope you will ferret the secret out and tell me, for I have
a great deal of curiosity, fancying that picture had something to do
with his remaining so long a bachelor. I do not mean that he does not
love you,” she added, as she saw how white Katy grew. “It is not to be
expected that a man can live to be thirty without loving more than one.
There was Sybil Grey, a famous belle, whom I thought at one time he
would marry; but when Judge Grandon offered she accepted, and Will was
left in the lurch. I do not really believe he cared though, for Sybil
was too much of a flirt to suit his jealous lordship, and I will do him
the justice to say that however many fancies he may have had, he likes
you the best of all;” and this Juno felt constrained to say because of
the look in Katy’s face, which warned her that in her thoughtlessness
she had gone too far and pierced the young wife’s heart with a pang as
cruel as it was unnecessary.

Bell had tried to stop her, but she had rattled on until now it was too
late, and she could not recall her words, however much she might wish to
do so. “Don’t tell Will,” she was about to say, when Will himself
appeared, to take Katy out to dinner. Very beautiful and sad were the
blue eyes which looked up at him so wistfully, and nothing but the
remembrance of Juno’s words, “He likes you best of all,” kept Katy from
crying outright, when he took her hand, and asked if she was tired.

“Let us try what dinner will do for you,” he said, and in silence Katy
went with him to the dining-room, where the glare and the ceremony
bewildered her, bringing a homesick feeling as she thought of Silverton,
and the plain tea-table, graced with the mulberry set instead of the
costly china before her.

Never had Katy felt so embarrassed as she did when seated for the first
time at dinner in her husband’s home, with all those criticising eyes
upon her. She had been very hungry, but her appetite was gone and she
almost loathed the rich food offered her, feeling so glad when the
dinner was ended, and Wilford took her to the parlor, where she found
Mark Ray waiting for her. He had been obliged to decline Mrs. Cameron’s
invitation to dinner, but had come as early as possible after it, and
Katy was delighted to see him, for she remembered how he had helped her
during that week of gayety in Boston, when society was so new to her. As
he had been then, so he was now, and his friendly manner put Katy as
much at her ease as it was possible for her to be in the presence of
Wilford’s mother and sisters.

“I suppose you have not seen your sister Helen? You know I called
there,” Mark said to Katy; but before she could reply, a pair of black
eyes shot a keen glance at luckless Mark, and Juno’s sharp voice said
quickly, “I did not know you had the honor of Miss Lennox’s
acquaintance.”

Mark was in a dilemma. He had kept his call at Silverton to himself, as
he did not care to be questioned about Katy’s family; and now, when it
accidentally came out, he tried to make some evasive reply, pretending
that he had spoken of it, and Juno had forgotten. But Juno knew better,
and from that night dated a strong feeling of dislike for Helen Lennox,
whom she affected to despise, even though she could be jealous of her.
Wisely changing the conversation, Mark asked Katy to play, and as she
seldom refused, she went at once to the piano, astonishing both Mrs.
Cameron and her daughters with the brilliancy of her performance. Even
Juno complimented her, saying she must have taken lessons very young.

“When I was ten,” Katy answered. “Cousin Morris gave me my first
exercise himself. He plays sometimes.”

“Yes, I knew that,” Juno replied. “Does your sister play as well as
you?”

Katy knew that Helen did not, and she answered frankly, “Morris thinks
she does not. She is not as fond of it as I am.” Then feeling that she
must in some way make amends for Helen, she added, “But she knows a
great deal more than I do about _books_. Helen is very smart.”

There was a smile on every lip at this ingenuous remark, but only Mark
and Bell liked Katy the better for it. Wilford did not care to have her
talking of her friends, and he kept her at the piano, until she said her
fingers were tired and begged leave to stop.

It was late ere Mark bade them good night; so late that Katy began to
wonder if he would never go, yawning once so perceptibly that Wilford
gave her a reproving glance, which sent the hot blood to her face and
drove from her every feeling of drowsiness. Even after he had gone the
family were in no haste to retire, but sat chatting with Wilford until
the city clock struck twelve and Katy was nodding in her chair.

“Poor child, she is very tired,” Wilford said, apologetically, gently
waking Katy, who begged them to excuse her, and followed her husband to
her room, where she was free to ask him what she must ask before she
could ever be quite as happy as she had been before.

Going up to the chair where Wilford was sitting before the fire, and
standing partly behind him, she said timidly, “Will you answer me one
thing truly?”

Alone with Katy, Wilford felt all his old tenderness returning, and
drawing her into his lap he asked her what it was she wished to know.

“_Did_ you love anybody three or four years ago, or ever—that is, love
them well enough to wish to make them your wife?”

Katy could feel how Wilford started, as he said, “What put that idea
into your head? Who has been talking to you?”

“Juno,” Katy answered. “She told me she believed that it was some other
love which kept you a bachelor so long. Was it, Wilford?” and Katy’s
lips quivered in a grieved kind of way as she put the question.

“Juno be——”

Wilford did not say what, for he seldom swore, and never in a lady’s
presence. So he said instead,

“It was very unkind in Juno to distress you with matters about which she
knew nothing.”

“But did you?” Katy asked again. “Was there not a Sybil Grey, or some
one of that name?”

At the mention of Sybil Grey, Wilford looked relieved, and answered her
at once.

“Yes, there was a Sybil Grey, Mrs. Judge Grandon now, and a dashing
widow. Don’t sigh so wearily,” he continued, as Katy drew a gasping
breath. “Knowing she was a widow I chose you, thus showing which I
preferred. Few men live to be thirty without more or less fancies, which
under some circumstances might ripen into something stronger, and I am
not an exception. I never loved Sybil Grey, nor wished to make her my
wife. I admired her very much. I admire her yet, and among all my
acquaintances there is not one upon whom I would care to have you make
so good an impression as upon her, nor one whose manner you could better
imitate.”

“Oh, will she call? Shall I see her?” Katy asked, beginning to feel
alarmed at the very thought of Sybil Grey, with all her polish and
manner.

“She is spending the winter in New Orleans with her late husband’s
relatives. She will not return till spring,” Wilford replied. “But do
not look so distressed, for I tell you solemnly that I never loved
another as I love you. Do you believe me?”

“Yes,” and Katy’s head drooped upon his shoulder.

She was satisfied with regard to Sybil Grandon, only hoping she would
not have to meet her when she came home. But the picture. Whose was
that? Not Sybil’s certainly, else Juno would have known. The picture
troubled her, but she dared not speak of it, Wilford had seemed so angry
at Juno. Still she would probe him a little further, and so she
continued,

“I do believe you, and if I ever see this Sybil I will try to imitate
her; but tell me, if after her, there was among your friends _one_
better than the rest, one almost as dear as I am, one whom you sometimes
remember even now—is she living, or is she dead?”

Wilford thought of that humble grave far off in St. Mary’s churchyard,
and he answered quickly,

“If there ever was such an one, she certainly is _not_ living. Are you
satisfied?”

Katy answered that she was, but perfect confidence in her husband’s
affection had been terribly shaken, and Katy’s heart was too full to
sleep even after she had retired. Visions of Sybil Grey, blended with
visions of another whom she called the “dead fancy,” flitted before her
mind, as she lay awake, while hour after hour went by, until tired
nature could endure no longer, and just as the great city was waking up
and the rattle of wheels was beginning to be heard upon the pavements,
she fell away to sleep.




                              CHAPTER XIV.
                  EXTRACTS FROM BELL CAMERON’S DIARY.


                                                     NEW YORK, December.

After German Philosophy and Hamilton’s Metaphysics, it is a great relief
to have introduced into the family an entirely new element—a character
the dissection of which is at once a novelty and a recreation. It is
absolutely refreshing, and I find myself returning to my books with
increased vigor after an encounter with that unsophisticated,
innocent-minded creature, our sister-in-law Mrs. Wilford Cameron. Such
pictures as Juno and I used to draw of the stately personage who was one
day coming to us as Wilford’s wife, and of whom even mother was to stand
in awe. Alas, how hath our idol fallen! And still I rather like the
little creature, who, the very first night, nearly choked mother to
death, giving her lace streamers a most uncomfortable twitch, and
actually kissing _father_—a thing I have not done since I can remember.
But then the Camerons are all a set of icicles, encased in a
refrigerator at that. If we were not, we should thaw out, when Katy
leans on us so affectionately and looks up at us so wistfully, as if
pleading for our love. Wilford does wonders; he used to be so grave, so
dignified and silent, that I never supposed he would bear having a wife
meet him at the door with cooing and kisses, and climbing into his lap
right before us all. Juno says it makes her sick, while mother is
dreadfully shocked; and even Will sometimes seems annoyed, gently
shoving her aside and telling her he is tired.

After all, it is a query in my mind whether it is not better to be like
Katy than like Sybil Grandon, about whom Juno was mean enough to tell
her the first day of her arrival.

“Very pretty, but shockingly insipid,” is Juno’s verdict upon Mrs.
Wilford, while mother says less, but looks a great deal more, especially
when she talks about “my folks,” as she did to Mrs. Gen. Reynolds the
first time she called. Mother and Juno were so annoyed, while Will
looked like a thunder-cloud, when she spoke of Uncle Ephraim saying so
and so. He was better satisfied with Katy in Europe, where he was not
known, than he is here, where he sees her with other people’s eyes. One
of his weaknesses is a too great reverence for the world’s opinion, as
held and expounded by our very fashionable mother, and as in a quiet
kind of way she has arrayed herself against poor Katy, while Juno is
more open in her acts and sayings, I predict that it will not be many
months before he comes to the conclusion that he has made a
_mésalliance_, a thing of which no Cameron was ever guilty.

I wonder if there is any truth in the rumor that Mrs. Gen. Reynolds once
taught a district school, and if she did, how much would that detract
from the merits of her son, Lieutenant Bob. But what nonsense to be
writing about him. Let me go back to Katy, to whom Mrs. Gen. Reynolds
took at once, laughing merrily at her _naïve_ speeches, as she called
them—speeches which made Will turn black in the face, they betrayed so
much of rustic life and breeding. I fancy that he has given Katy a few
hints, and that she is beginning to be afraid of him, for she watches
him constantly when she is talking, and she does not now slip her hand
into his as she used to when guests are leaving and she stands at his
side; neither is she so demonstrative when he comes up from the office
at night, and there is a look upon her face which was not there when she
came. They are “_toning_ her down,” mother and Juno, and to-morrow they
are actually going to commence a systematic course of training
preparatory to her début into society, said début to occur on the night
of the ——, when Mrs. Gen. Reynolds gives the party talked about so long.
I was present when they met in solemn conclave to talk it over, mother
asking Will if he had any objections to Juno’s instructing his wife with
regard to certain things of which she was ignorant. Will’s forehead knit
itself together at first, and I half hoped he would veto the whole
proceeding, but after a moment he replied,

“No, provided Katy is willing. Her feelings must not be hurt.”

“Certainly not,” mother said. “Katy is a dear little creature, and we
all love her very much, but that does not blind us to her deficiencies,
and as we are anxious that she should fill that place in society which
Mrs. Wilford Cameron ought to fill, it seems necessary to tone her down
a little before her first appearance at a party.”

To this Will assented, and then Juno went on to enumerate her
deficiencies, which, as nearly as I can remember, are these: She laughs
too much and too loud; is too enthusiastic over novelties; has too much
to say about Silverton and “my folks;” quotes Uncle Ephraim and sister
Helen too often, and is even guilty at times of mentioning a certain
Aunt Betsy, who must have floated with the ark, and snuffed the breezes
of Ararat. She does not know how to enter, or cross, or leave a room
properly, or receive an introduction, or, in short, to do anything
according to New York ideas, as understood by the Camerons, and so she
is to be taught—_toned down_, mother called it—dwelling upon her high
spirit as something vulgar, if not absolutely wicked. How father would
have sworn, for he calls her his little sunbeam, and says he never
should have gained so fast if she had not come with her sunny face, and
lively, merry laugh, to cheer his sick room. Katy has a fast friend in
him. But mother and Juno—well, I shall be glad if they do not annihilate
her altogether, and I am surprised that Will allows it. I wonder if Katy
is really happy with us. She says she is, and is evidently delighted
with New York life, clapping her hands when the invitation to Mrs.
Reynolds’s party was received, and running with it to Wilford as soon as
he came home. It is her first big party, she says, she having never
attended any except that little sociable in Boston, and those insipid
school-girl affairs at the seminary. I may be conceited—Juno thinks I
am—but really and truly, Bell Cameron’s private opinion of herself is
that at heart she is better than the rest of her family, and so I pity
this little sister of ours, while at the same time I am exceedingly
anxious to be present whenever Juno takes her in hand, for I like to see
the fun. Were she at all bookish, I should avow myself her champion, and
openly defend her; but she is not, and so I give her into the hands of
the Philistines, hoping they will, at least, spare her hair, and not
worry her life out on that head. It is very becoming to her, and several
young ladies have whispered their intention of trying its effect upon
themselves, so that Katy may yet be a leader of the fashion.




                              CHAPTER XV.
                  TONING DOWN.—BELL’S DIARY CONTINUED.


Such fun as it was to see mother and Juno training Katy, showing her how
to enter the parlor, how to arrange her dress, how to carry her hands
and feet, and how to sit in a chair—Juno going through with the
performance first, and then requiring Katy to imitate her. Had I been
Katy I should have rebelled, but she is far too sweet-tempered and
anxious to please, while I suspect that fear of my lord Wilford had
something to do with it, for when the drill was over, she asked so
earnestly if we thought he would be ashamed of her, and there were tears
in her great blue eyes as she said it. Hang Wilford! Hang the whole of
them; I am not sure I shall not yet espouse her cause myself, or else
tell father, who will do it so much better.

_Dec. —th._—Another drill, with Juno commanding officer, while the poor
little _private_ seemed completely worried out. This time there were
open doors, but so absorbed were mother and Juno as not to hear the
bell, and just as Juno was saying, “Now imagine me Mrs. Gen. Reynolds,
to whom you are being presented,” while Katy was bowing almost to the
floor, who should appear but Mark Ray, stumbling square upon that
ludicrous rehearsal, and, of course, bringing it to an end. No
explanation was made, nor was any needed, for Mark’s face showed that he
understood it, and it was as much as he could do to keep from roaring
with merriment; I am sure he pitied Katy, for his manner towards her was
very affectionate and kind, and when she left the room he complimented
her highly, repeating many things he had heard in her praise from those
who had seen her both in the street and here at home. Juno’s face was
like a thunder-cloud, for she is as much in love with Mark Ray as she
was once with Dr. Grant, and is even jealous of his praise of Katy. Glad
am I that I never yet saw the man who could make me jealous, or for whom
I cared a pin. There’s Bob Reynolds up at West Point. I suppose I do
think his epaulettes very becoming to him, but his hair is too light,
and he cannot raise whiskers big enough to cast a shadow on the wall,
while I know he looks with contempt upon females who write, even though
their writings never see the light of day; thinks them strong-minded,
self-willed, and all that. He is expected to be present at the party,
but I shall not go. I prefer to stay at home and finish that article
entitled, “Women of the Present Century,” suggested to my mind by my
sister Katy, who stands for the picture I am drawing of a pretty woman,
with more heart than brains, contrasting her with such an one as Juno,
her opposite.

_January 10._—The last time I wrote in my journal was just before the
party, which is over now, the long talked of affair at which Katy was
the reigning belle. I don’t know _how_ it happened, but happen it did,
and Juno’s glory faded before that of her rival, whose ringing laugh
frequently penetrated to every room, and made more than one look up in
some surprise. But when Mrs. Humphreys said, “It’s that charming little
Mrs. Cameron, the prettiest creature I ever saw, her laugh is so
refreshing and genuine,” the point was settled, and Katy was free to
laugh as loudly as she pleased.

She did look beautifully, in lace and pearls, with her short hair
curling in her neck. She would not allow us to put so much as a bud in
her hair, showing, in this respect, a willfulness we never expected; but
as she was perfectly irresistible, we suffered her to have her way, and
when she was dressed, sent her in to father, who had asked to see her.
And now comes the strangest thing in the world.

“You are very beautiful, little daughter,” father said, “I almost wish I
was going with you to see the sensation you are sure to create.”

Then straight into his lap climbed Katy, _father’s_ lap, where none of
us ever sat, I am sure, and began to coax him to go, telling him she
should appear better if he were there, and that she should need him when
Wilford left her, as of course he must a part of the time. And father
actually dressed himself and went. But Katy did not need him after the
people began to understand that Mrs. Wilford Cameron was the rage. Even
Sybil Grey in her palmiest days never received such homage as was paid
to the little Silverton girl, whose great charm was her perfect
enjoyment of everything, and her perfect faith in what people said to
her. Juno was nothing and I worse than nothing, for I _did_ go after
all, wearing a plain black silk, with high neck and long sleeves,
looking, as Juno said, like a Sister of Charity.

Lieut. Bob was there, his light hair lighter than ever, and his chin as
smooth as my hand. He likes to dance and I do not, but somehow he
persisted in staying where I was, notwithstanding that I said my
sharpest things in hopes to get rid of him. He left me at last to dance
with Katy, who makes up in grace and airiness what she lacks in
knowledge. Once upon the floor she did not lack for partners, but I
verily believe danced every set, growing prettier and fairer as she
danced, for hers is a complexion which does not get red and blowsy with
exercise.

Mark Ray was there too, and I saw him smile comically when Katy met the
people with that bow she was making at the time he came so suddenly upon
us. Mark is a good fellow, and I really think we have him to thank in a
measure for Katy’s successful début. He was the first to take her from
Wilford, walking with her up and down the hall by way of reassuring her,
and once as they passed me I heard her say,

“I feel so timid here—so much afraid of doing something wrong—something
countrified.”

“Never mind,” he answered. “Act yourself just as you would were you at
home in Silverton, where you are known. That is far better than
affecting a manner not natural to you.”

After that Katy brightened wonderfully. The stiffness which at first was
perceptible passed off, and she was Katy Lennox, queening it over all
the city belles, drawing after her a host of gentlemen, and between the
sets holding a miniature court at one end of the room, where the more
desirable of the guests crowded around, flattering her until her little
head ought to have been turned if it was not. To do her justice she bore
her honors well, and when we were in the carriage and father
complimented her upon her success, she only said,

“If I pleased you all I am glad.”

So many calls as we had the next day, and so many invitations as there
are now on our table for Mrs. Wilford Cameron, while our opera box
between the scenes is packed with beaux, until one would suppose Wilford
might be jealous; but Katy takes it so quietly and modestly, seeming
only gratified for his sake, that I really believe he enjoys it more
than she does. At all events he persists in her going even when she
would rather stay at home, so if she is spoiled the fault will rest with
him.

_February —th._—Poor Katy! Dissipation is beginning to wear upon her,
for she is not accustomed to our late hours, and sometimes falls asleep
while Esther is dressing her. But go she must, for Wilford wills it so,
and she is but an automaton to do his bidding.

Why can’t mother let her alone, when everybody seems so satisfied with
her? Somehow she does not believe that people are as delighted as they
pretend, and so she keeps training and tormenting her until I do not
wonder that Katy sometimes hates to go out, lest she shall unconsciously
be guilty of an impropriety. I pitied her last night when, after she was
ready for the opera, she came into my room where I was indulging in the
luxury of a loose dressing-gown, with my feet on the sofa. At first I
think she liked Juno best, but latterly she has taken to me, and now
sitting down before the fire into which her blue eyes looked with a
steady stare, she said,

“I wish I might stay here with you to-night. I have heard this opera
before, and it will be so tiresome. I get so sleepy while they are
singing, for I never care to watch the acting. I did at first when it
was new, but now it seems insipid to see them make believe, while the
theatre is worse yet,” and she gave a weary yawn.

In less than three months she had exhausted fashionable life, and I
looked at her in astonishment, asking what would please her if the opera
did not. What would she like?

Turning her eyes full upon me, she exclaimed,

“I do like it some, I suppose, only I get so tired. I like to ride, I
like to skate, I like to shop, and all that, but oh, you don’t know how
I want to go home to mother and Helen. I have not seen them for so long;
but I am going in the spring—going in May. How many days are there in
March and April? Sixty-one,” she continued; “then I may safely say that
in eighty days I shall see mother, and all the dear old places. It is
not a grand home like this. You, Bell, might laugh at it; Juno would, I
am sure, but you do not know how dear it is to me, or how I long for a
sight of the huckleberry hills and the rocks where Helen and I used to
play.”

Just then Will called to say the carriage was waiting, and Katy was
driven away, while I sat thinking of her, and the devoted love with
which she clings to her home and friends, wondering if it were the
kindest thing which could have been done, transplanting her to our
atmosphere, so different from her own.

_March 1st._—As it was in the winter, so it is now; Mrs. Wilford Cameron
is the rage—the bright star of society, which quotes and pets and
flatters, and even laughs at her by turns; and Wilford, though still
watchful, lest she should do something _outré_, is very proud of her,
insisting upon her accepting invitations, sometimes two for one evening,
until the child is absolutely worn out, and said to me once when I told
her how well she was looking and how pretty her dress was, “Yes, pretty
enough, but I am so tired. If I could lie down on mother’s bed, in a
shilling calico, just as I used to do!”

Mother’s bed seems at present to be the height of her ambition—the thing
she most desires; and as Juno fancies it must be the _feathers_ she is
sighing for, she wickedly suggests that Wilford either buy a feather bed
for his wife, or else send to Aunty Betsy for the one which was to be
Katy’s setting out! They go to housekeeping in May, and on Madison
Square, too. I think Wilford would quite as soon remain with us, for he
does not fancy change; but Katy wants a home of her own, and I never saw
anything more absolutely beautiful than her face when father said to
Wilford that No.—— Madison Square was for sale, advising him to secure
it. But when mother intimated that there was no necessity for the two
families to separate at present—that Katy was too young to have the
charge of a house—there came into her eyes a look of such distress that
it went straight to father’s heart, and calling her to him, he said,

“Tell me, sunbeam, what is your choice—to stay with us, or have a home
of your own?”

Katy was very white, and her voice trembled as she replied,

“You have been kind to me here, and it is very pleasant; but I guess—I
think—I’m sure—I should like the housekeeping best. I am not so young
either. Nineteen in July, and when I go home next month I can learn so
much of Aunt Betsy and Aunt Hannah.”

Mother looked at Wilford then; but he was looking into the fire with an
expression anything but favorable to that visit home, fixed now for
April instead of May. But Katy has no discernment, and believes she is
actually going to learn how to make apple dumplings and pumpkin pies. In
spite of mother the house is bought, and now she is gone all day
deciding how it shall be furnished, always leaving Katy out of the
question, as if she were a cipher, and only consulting Wilford’s choice.
They will be happier alone, I know. Mrs. Gen. Reynolds says that it is
the way for young people to live; that her son’s wife shall never come
home to her, for of course their habits could not be alike; and then she
looked queerly at me, as if she knew I was thinking of Lieutenant Bob
and who his wife might be.

Sybil Grandon is coming in April or May, and Mrs. Reynolds wonders
_will_ she flirt as she used to do. Just as if Bob would care for a
widow! There is more danger from Will, who thinks Mrs. Grandon a perfect
paragon, and who is very anxious that Katy may appear well before her,
saying nothing and doing nothing which shall in any way approximate to
Silverton and the _shoes_ which Katy told Esther she used to bind when a
girl. Will need not be disturbed, for Sybil Grandon was never half as
pretty as Katy, or half as much admired. Neither need Mrs. Gen. Reynolds
fret about Bob, as if he would care for her. Sybil Grandon indeed!




                              CHAPTER XVI.
                                 KATY.


Much which Bell had written of Katy was true. She had been in New York
nearly four months, drinking deep draughts from the cup of folly and
fashion held so constantly to her lips; but she cloyed of it at last,
and what at first had been so eagerly grasped, began, from daily
repetition, to grow insipid and dull. To be the belle of every place, to
know that her dress, her style, and even the fashion of her hair was
copied and admired, was gratifying to her, because she knew it pleased
her husband, who was never happier or prouder than when, with Katy on
his arm, he entered some crowded parlor and heard the buzz of admiration
as it circled round, while Katy smiled and blushed like a little child,
wondering at the attentions lavished upon her, and attributing them
mostly to her husband, whose position she understood, marveling more and
more that he should have chosen her to be his wife. That he had so
honored her made her love him with a strange kind of grateful, clinging
love, which as yet would acknowledge no fault in him, no wrong, no
error; and if ever a shadow did cloud her heart she was the one to
blame, not Wilford; he was right—he had idol she worshiped—he the one
for whose sake she tried to drop her country ways and conform to the
rules his mother and sister taught, submitting with the utmost good
nature to what Bell called the _drill_, but never losing that natural,
playful, airy manner which so charmed the city people and made her the
reigning belle. As Marian Hazelton had predicted, others than her
husband had spoken words of praise in Katy’s ear; but such was her
nature that the shafts of flattery glanced aside, leaving her unharmed,
so that her husband, though sometimes disquieted, had no cause for
jealousy, enjoying Katy’s success far more than she did herself, urging
her out when she would rather have stayed at home, and evincing so much
annoyance if she ventured to remonstrate, that she gave it up at last
and floated on with the tide.

Mrs. Cameron had at first been greatly shocked at Katy’s want of
propriety, looking on aghast when she wound her arms around Wilford’s
neck, or sat upon his knee; but to the elder Cameron the sight was a
pleasant one, bringing back sunny memories of a summer-time years ago,
when _he_ was young, and a fair bride had for a few brief weeks made
this earth a paradise to him. But fashion had entered his Eden—that
summer time was gone, and only the dun leaves of autumn lay where the
buds which promised so much had been. The girlish bride was a stately
matron now, doing nothing amiss, but making all her acts conform to a
prescribed rule of etiquette, and frowning majestically upon the
frolicsome, impulsive Katy, who had crept so far into the heart of the
eccentric man that he always found the hours of her absence long,
listening intently for the sound of her bounding footsteps, and feeling
that her coming to his household had infused into his veins a better,
healthier life than he had known for years. Katy was very dear to him,
and he felt a thrill of pain when first the _toning down_ process
commenced. He had heard them talk about it, and in his wrath he had
hurled a cut-glass goblet upon the marble hearth, breaking it in atoms,
while he called them a pair of precious fools, and Wilford a bigger one
because he suffered it. So long as his convalescence lasted, he was some
restraint upon his wife, but when he was well enough to resume his
duties in his Wall Street office, there was nothing in the way, and
Katy’s education progressed accordingly. For Wilford’s sake Katy would
do anything, and she submitted to much which would otherwise have been
excessively annoying. But she was growing tired now, and it told upon
her face, which was whiter than when she came to New York, while her
figure was, if possible, slighter and more airy; but this only enhanced
her loveliness, Wilford thought, and so he paid no heed to her
complaints of weariness, but kept her in the circle which welcomed her
so warmly, and would have missed her so much.

Little by little it had come to Katy that she was not quite as
comfortable in her husband’s family as she would be in a house of her
own. The constant watch kept over her by Mrs. Cameron and Juno irritated
and fretted her, making her wonder what was the matter, and why she
should so often feel lonely and desolate when surrounded by every luxury
which wealth could purchase. “It is _his folks_,” she always said to
herself when cogitating upon the subject. “Alone with Wilford I shall
feel as light and happy as I did in Silverton.”

And so Katy caught eagerly at the prospect of a release from the
restraint of No.——, seeming so anxious that Wilford, almost before he
was aware of it himself, became the owner of one of the most desirable
situations on Madison Square. Of all the household after Katy, Juno was
perhaps the only one glad of the new house. It would be a change for
herself, for she meant to spend much of her time on Madison Square,
where everything was to be on the most magnificent style. Fortunately
for Katy, she knew nothing of Juno’s intentions and built castles of her
new home, where mother could come with Helen and Dr. Grant. Somehow she
never saw Uncle Ephraim, nor his wife, nor Aunt Betsy there. She knew
how out of place they would appear, and how they would annoy Wilford;
but surely to her mother and Helen there could be no objection, and when
she first went over the house she designated this room as mother’s, and
another one as Helen’s, thinking how each should be fitted up with
direct reference to their tastes, Helen’s containing a great many books,
while her mother’s should have easy-chairs and lounges, with a host of
drawers for holding things. And Wilford heard it all, making no reply,
but considering how he could manage best so as to have no scene, for he
had not the slightest intention of inviting either Mrs. Lennox or Helen
to visit him, much less to become a part of his household. That he did
not marry Katy’s relatives was a fact as fixed as the laws of the Medes
and Persians, and Katy’s anticipations were answering no other purpose
than to divert her mind for the time being, keeping her bright and
cheerful.

Very pleasant indeed were the pictures Katy drew of the new house where
Helen was to come, but pleasanter far were her pictures of that visit to
Silverton, to occur in April. Poor Katy! how much she thought about that
visit when she should see them all and go with Uncle Ephraim down into
the meadows, making believe she was Katy Lennox still—when she could
climb the ladder in the barn after new-laid eggs, or steal across the
fields to Linwood, talking with Morris as she used to talk in the days
which seemed so long ago. Morris she feared was not liking her as well
as of old, thinking her very frivolous and silly, for he had only
written her one short note in reply to the letter she had sent, telling
him of the parties she had attended, and the gay, happy life she led,
for to him she would not then confess that in her cup of joy there was a
single bitter dreg. All was bright and fair, she said, and Morris had
replied that he was glad, “But do not forget that _death_ can find you
even amid your splendor, or that after death the judgment comes, and
then what shall it profit you if you gain the whole world and lose your
own soul.”

These words had rung in Katy’s ears for many a day, following her to the
dance and to the opera, where even the music was drowned by the echo of
the words, “lose your own soul.” But the sting grew less and less, till
Katy no longer felt it, and now was only anxious to talk with Morris and
convince him that she was not as thoughtless as he might suppose, that
she still remembered his teachings, and the little church in the valley,
preferring it to the handsome, aristocratic house where she went with
the Camerons once on every Sunday.

“One more week and then it is April,” she said to Wilford one evening
after they had retired to their room, and she was talking of Silverton.
“I guess we’d better go about the tenth. Shall you stay as long as I
do?”

Wilford bit his lip, and after a moment replied,

“I have been talking with mother, and we think April is not a good time
for you to be in the country; it is so wet and cold, and I want you here
to help order our furniture.”

“Oh, Wilford!” and Katy’s voice trembled, for from past experience she
knew that for Wilford to object to her plans was equivalent to a
refusal, and her heart throbbed with disappointment as she tried to
listen while Wilford urged many reasons why she should not go,
convincing her at last that of all times for visiting Silverton, spring
was the worst; that summer or autumn were better, and that it was her
duty to remain where she was until such time as he saw fit for her to do
otherwise.

This was the meaning of what he said, and though his manner was guarded,
and his words kind, they were very conclusive, and with one gasping sob
Katy gave up Silverton, charging it more to Mrs. Cameron than to
Wilford, and writing next day to Helen that she could not come just
then, but that after she was settled they might surely expect her.

With a bitter pang Helen read this letter to the three women who had
anticipated Katy’s visit so much, and each of whom cried quietly over
her disappointment, while Uncle Ephraim went back to his work that
afternoon with a heavy heart, for now his labor was not lightened by
thoughts of Katy’s being there so soon.

“Please God she may come to us sometime,” he said, pausing beneath the
butternut in the meadow, and remembering just how Katy looked on that
first day of her return from Canandaigua, when she sat on the flat stone
while he piled up his hay and talked with her of different paths through
life, one of which she must surely tread.

She had said, “I will choose the straight and pleasant,” and some would
think she had; but Uncle Ephraim was not so sure, and leaning against a
tree, he asked silently that whether he ever saw his darling again or
not, God would care for her and keep her unspotted from the world.




                             CHAPTER XVII.
                             THE NEW HOUSE.


It was a cruel thing for Wilford Cameron to try to separate Katy from
the hearts which loved her so much; and, as if he felt reproached, there
was an increased tenderness in his manner towards her, particularly as
he saw how sad she was for a few days after his decision. But Katy could
not be sorry long, and in the excitement of settling the new house her
spirits rallied, and her merry laugh trilled like a bird through the
rooms where the workmen were so busy, and where Mrs. Cameron was the
real superintendent, though there was sometimes a show of consulting
Katy, who nevertheless was a mere cipher in the matter. In everything
the mother had her way, until it came to the room designed for Helen,
and which Mrs. Cameron was for converting into a kind of smoking or
lounging room for Wilford and his associates. Katy must not expect him
to be always as devoted to her as he had been during the winter, she
said. He had a great many bachelor friends, and now that he had a house
of his own, it was natural that he should have some place where they
could spend an hour or so with him without the restraint of ladies’
society, and this was just the room—large, airy, quiet, and so far from
the parlors that the odor of the smoke could not reach them.

Katy had submitted to much without knowing that she was submitting; but
something Bell had dropped that morning had awakened a suspicion that
possibly she was being ignored, and the wicked part of Helen would have
enjoyed the look in her eye as she said, not to Mrs. Cameron, but to
Wilford, “I have from the very first decided this chamber for Helen, and
I cannot give it up for a smoking room. You never had one at home. Why
did you not, if it is so necessary?”

Wilford could not tell her that his mother would as soon have brought
into her house one of Barnum’s shows, as to have had a room set apart
for smoking, which she specially disliked; neither could he at once
reply at all, so astonished was he at this sudden flash of spirit. Mrs.
Cameron was the first to rally, and in her usual quiet tone she said, “I
did not know that your sister was to form a part of your household. When
do you expect her?” and her cold gray eyes rested steadily upon Katy,
who never before so fully realized the distance there was between her
husband’s friends and her own. But as the worm will turn when trampled
on, so Katy, though hitherto powerless to defend herself, roused in
Helen’s behalf, and in a tone as quiet and decided as that of her
mother-in-law, replied, “She will come whenever I write for her. It was
arranged from the first. Wasn’t it, Wilford?” and she turned to her
husband, who, unwilling to decide between a wife he loved and a mother
whose judgment he considered infallible, affected not to hear her, and
stole from the room, followed by Mrs. Cameron, so that Katy was left
mistress of the field.

After that no one interfered in her arrangement of Helen’s room, which,
with far less expense than Mrs. Cameron would have done, she fitted up
so cosily that Wilford pronounced it the pleasantest room in the house,
while Bell went into ecstasies over it, and even Juno might have unbent
enough to praise it, were it not for Mark Ray, who, from being tacitly
claimed by Juno, was frequently admitted to their counsels, and had
asked the privilege of contributing to Helen’s room a handsome volume of
German poetry, such as he fancied she might enjoy. So long as Mark’s
attentions were not bestowed in any other quarter Juno was comparatively
satisfied, but the moment he swerved a hair’s breadth from the line she
had marked out, her anger was aroused; and now, remembering his
commendations of Helen Lennox, she hated her as cordially as one jealous
girl can hate another whom she has not seen, making Katy so
uncomfortable, without knowing what was the matter, that she hailed the
morning of her exit from No.—— as the brightest since her marriage.

It was a very happy day for Katy, and when she first sat down to dinner
in her own home, her face shone with a joy which even the presence of
her mother-in-law could not materially lessen. She would rather have
been alone with Wilford, it is true, but as her choice was not consulted
she submitted cheerfully, proudly taking her rightful place at the
table, and doing the honors so well that Mrs. Cameron, in speaking of it
to her daughters, acknowledged that Wilford had little to fear if Katy
always appeared as much at ease as she did that day. A thought similar
to this passed through the mind of Wilford, who was very observant of
such matters, and that night, after his mother was gone, he warmly
commended Katy, but spoiled the pleasure his commendations would have
given by telling her next, as if one thought suggested the other, that
Sybil Grandon had returned, that he saw her on Broadway, accepting her
invitation to a seat in her carriage which brought him to his door. She
had made many inquiries concerning Katy, expressing a great curiosity to
see her, and saying that as she drove past the house that morning, she
was strongly tempted to waive all ceremony and run in, knowing she
should be pardoned for the sake of Auld Lang Syne, when she was
privileged to take liberties with the Camerons. All this Wilford
repeated to Katy, but he did not tell her how at the words Auld Lang
Syne, Sybil had turned her fine eyes upon him with an expression which
made him color, for he knew she was referring to the time when her name
and his were always coupled together.

Katy had dreaded the return of Sybil Grandon, of whom she had heard so
much, and now that she had come, she felt for a moment a terror of
meeting her which she tried to shake off, succeeded at last, for perfect
faith in Wilford was to her a strong shield of defence, and her only
trouble was a fear lest she should fall in the scale of comparison which
might be instituted between herself and Mrs. Grandon, who after a few
days ceased to be a bugbear, Wilford never mentioning her again, and
Katy only hearing of her through Juno and Bell, the first of whom went
into raptures over her, while the latter styled her a silly, coquettish
widow, who would appear much better to have worn her weeds a little
longer, and not throw herself quite so soon into the market. That she
should of course meet her some time, Katy knew, but she would not
distress herself till the time arrived, and so she dismissed her fears,
or rather lost them in the excitement of her new dignity as mistress of
a house.

In her girlhood Katy had evinced a taste for housekeeping, which now
developed so rapidly that she won the respect of all the servants, from
the man who answered the bell to the accomplished cook, hired by Mrs.
Cameron, and who, like most accomplished cooks, was sharp and cross and
opinionated, but who did not find it easy to scold the blithe little
woman who every morning came flitting into her dominions, not asking
what they would have for dinner, as she had been led to suppose she
would, but _ordering_ it with a matter of course air, which amused the
usually overbearing Mrs. Phillips. But when the little lady, rolling her
sleeves above her dimpled elbows and donning the clean white apron which
Phillips was reserving for afternoon, announced her intention of
surprising Wilford, with a pudding such as Aunt Betsy used to make,
there were signs of rebellion, Phillips telling her bluntly that she
couldn’t be bothered—that it was not a lady’s place in the kitchen under
foot—that the other Mrs. Cameron never did it, and would not like it in
Mrs. Wilford.

For a moment Katy paused and looked straight at Mrs. Phillips; then
said, quietly, “I have only six eggs here—the recipe is ten. Bring me
four more, please.”

There was something in the blue eyes which compelled obedience, and the
dessert progressed without another word of remonstrance. But when the
door bell rang, and word came down that there were ladies in the
parlor—Juno, with some one else—Phillips would not tell her of the
_flour_ on her hair; and as Katy, after casting aside her apron and
putting down her sleeves, only glanced hastily at herself in the hall
mirror as she passed it, she appeared in the parlor with this mark upon
her curls, and greatly to her astonishment was presented to “Mrs. Sybil
Grandon,” Juno explaining, that as Sybil was anxious to see her, and
they were passing the house, she had presumed upon her privilege as a
sister and brought her in.

For a moment the room turned dark, it was so sudden, so unexpected, and
she so unprepared; but Sybil’s familiar manner quieted her, and she was
able at last to look fully at her visitor, finding her _not_ as handsome
as she expected, nor as young, but in all other respects she had not
perhaps been exaggerated. Cultivated and self-possessed, she was very
pleasing in her manner, making Katy feel wholly at ease by a few
well-timed compliments, which had the merit of seeming genuine, so
perfect was she in the art of deception.

To Katy she was very gracious, admiring her house, admiring herself,
admiring everything, until Katy wondered how she could ever have dreaded
to meet her, laughing and chatting as familiarly as if the fashionable
woman were not criticising every movement, and every act, and every
feature of her face, wondering most at the _flour_ upon her hair!

Juno wondered, too, but knowing Katy’s domestic propensities, suspected
the truth, and feigning some errand with Phillips, she excused herself
for a moment and descended to the kitchen, where she was not long in
hearing about Katy’s “queer ways, coming where she was not needed, and
making country puddings after some heathenish aunt’s rule.”

“Was it Aunt Betsy?” Juno asked, her face betokening its disgust when
told that she was right, and her manner on her return to the parlor was
very frigid towards Katy, who had discovered the flour on her hair, and
was laughing merrily over it, telling Sybil how it happened—how cross
Phillips was—and lastly, how “our folks” often made the pudding, and
that was why she wished to surprise Wilford with it.

There was a sarcastic smile upon Sybil’s lip as she wished Mrs. Cameron
success and then departed, leaving Katy to finish the dessert, which,
when ready for the table, was certainly very inviting, and would have
tempted the appetite of any man who had not been listening to gossip not
wholly conducive to his peace of mind.

On his way home Wilford had stopped at his fathers, where Juno was
relating the particulars of her call upon his wife, and as she did not
think it necessary to stop for him, he heard of Katy’s misdoings, and
her general appearance in the presence of Sybil Grandon, whom she
entertained with a description of “our folks’” favorite dishes, together
with Aunt Betsy’s recipes. This was the straw too many, and since his
marriage Wilford had not been as angry as he was while listening to
Juno, who reported Sybil’s verdict on his wife, “A domestic little body
and very pretty.”

Wilford did not care to have his wife domestic; he did not marry her for
that, and in a mood anything but favorable to the light, delicate
dessert Katy had prepared with so much care, he went to his luxurious
home, where Katy ran as usual to meet him, her face brimming with the
surprise she had in store for him, and herself so much excited that she
did not at first observe the cloud upon his brow, as he moodily answered
her rapid questions. When the important moment arrived, and the dessert
was brought on, he promptly declined it, even after her explanation that
she made it herself, urging him to try it for the sake of pleasing her,
if nothing more. But Wilford was not hungry then, and even had he been,
he would have chosen anything before a pudding made from a recipe of
Betsy Barlow, so the dessert was untasted even by Katy herself, who,
knowing now that something had gone wrong, sat fighting back her tears
until the servant left the room, when she timidly asked, “What is it,
Wilford? What makes you seem so——” She would not say _cross_, and so
substituted “queer,” while Wilford plunged at once into the matter by
saying, “Juno tells me she called here this afternoon with Mrs.
Grandon.”

“Yes, I forgot to mention it,” Katy answered, feeling puzzled to know
why that should annoy her husband; but his next remarks disclosed the
whole, and Katy’s tears flowed fast as Wilford asked what she supposed
Mrs. Grandon thought, to see his wife looking as if fresh from the flour
barrel, and to hear her talk about Aunt Betsy’s recipes and “_our
folks_.” “That is a bad habit of yours, Katy,” he continued, “one of
which I wish you to break yourself, if possible. I have never spoken to
you directly on the subject before, but it annoys me exceedingly,
inasmuch as it is an indication of low breeding.”

There was no answer from Katy, whose heart was too full to speak, and so
Wilford went on, “Our servants were selected by mother with a direct
reference to your youth and inexperience, and it is not necessary for
you to frequent the kitchen, or, indeed, to go there oftener than once a
week. Let them come to you for orders, not you go to them. Neither need
you speak quite so familiarly to them, treating them almost as if they
were your equals. Try to remember your true position—that whatever you
may have been you are now Mrs. Wilford Cameron, equal to any lady in New
York.”

They were in the library now, and the soft May breeze came stealing
through the open window, stirring the fleecy curtains and blowing across
the tasteful bouquet which Katy had arranged; but Katy was too wretched
to care for her surroundings. It was the first time Wilford had ever
spoken to her in just this way, and his manner hurt her more than his
words, making her feel as if she were an ignorant, ill-bred creature,
whom he had raised to a position she did not know how to fill. It was
cruel thus to repay her attempts to please, and so, perhaps, Wilford
thought, as with folded arms he sat looking at her weeping so bitterly
upon the sofa; but he was too indignant to make any concession then, and
he suffered her to weep in silence until he remembered that his mother
had requested him to bring her round that evening, as they were
expecting a few of Juno’s friends, and among them Sybil Grandon. If Katy
went he wished her to look her best, and he unbent so far as to try to
check her tears. But Katy could not stop, and she wept so passionately
that Wilford’s anger subsided, leaving only tenderness and pity for the
wife he soothed and caressed, until the sobbing ceased, and Katy lay
passively in his arms, her face so white, and the dark rings about her
eyes showing so distinctly that Wilford did not press her when she
declined his mother’s invitation. He could go, she said, urging so many
reasons why he should that, for the first time since their marriage, he
left her alone, and went where Sybil Grandon smiled her sunniest smile,
and put forth her most persuasive powers to keep him at her side,
expressing so much regret that he did not bring “his charming little
wife, who completely won her heart, she was so child-like and
simple-hearted, laughing so merrily when she discovered the flour on her
hair, but not seeming to mind it in the least. Really, she did not see
how it happened that he was fortunate enough to win such a domestic
treasure. Where did he find her?”

If Sybil Grandon meant this to be complimentary, it was not received as
such. Wilford, almost grating his teeth with vexation as he listened to
it, and feeling doubly mortified with Katy, whom he found waiting for
him, when at a late hour he left the society of Sybil Grandon and
repaired to his home.

To Katy the time of his absence had seemed an age, for her thoughts had
been busy with the past, gathering up every incident connected with her
married life since she came to New York, and deducing from them the
conclusion that “Wilford’s folks” were ashamed of her, and that Wilford
himself might perhaps become so if he were not already. That would be
worse than death itself, and the darkest hours she had ever known were
those she spent alone that night, sobbing so violently as to bring on a
racking headache, which showed itself upon her face and touched Wilford
at once.

Sybil Grandon was forgotten in those moments of contrition, when he
ministered so tenderly to his suffering wife, whom he felt that he had
wronged. But he could not tell her so then. It was not natural for him
to confess his errors. There had always been a struggle between his duty
and his pride when he had done so, and now the latter conquered,
especially as Katy, grown more calm, began to take the censure to
herself, lamenting her short-comings, and promising to do better, even
to the imitating of Sybil Grandon, if that would make him forget the
past and love her as before.

Wilford could accord forgiveness far more graciously than he could ask
it, and so peace was restored, and Katy’s face next day looked bright
and happy when seen in her new carriage, which took her down Broadway to
Stewart’s, where she encountered Sybil Grandon, and with her Juno
Cameron.

From the latter Katy instinctively shrank, but she could not resist the
former, who greeted her so familiarly that Katy readily forgave her the
pain of which she had been the cause, and spoke of her to Wilford
without a pang when he came home to dinner. Still she could not overcome
her dread of meeting her, and she grew more and more averse to mingling
in society, where she might do many things to mortify her husband or his
family, and thus provoke a scene she hoped never again to pass through.

“Oh, if Helen were only here!” she thought, as she began to experience a
sensation of loneliness she had never felt before.

But Helen was not there, nor coming there at present. One word from
Wilford had settled that, convincing Katy that it was better to wait
until the autumn, inasmuch as they were going so soon to Saratoga and
Newport, places which Katy dreaded, after she knew that Mrs. Cameron and
Juno were to be of the party, and probably Sybil Grandon. Katy did not
dislike the latter, but she was never easy in her presence, while she
could not deny to herself that since Sybil’s return Wilford had not been
quite the same as before. In company he was more attentive than ever,
but at home he was sometimes moody and silent, while Katy strove in vain
to ascertain the cause.

They were not as happy in the new home as she had expected to be, but
the fault did not lie with Katy. She performed her part and more, taking
upon her young shoulders the whole of the burden which her husband
should have helped her to bear. The easy, indolent life Wilford had led
so long as a petted son of a partial mother unfitted him for care, and
he was as much a boarder in his own home as he had even been in the
hotels in Paris, thoughtlessly requiring of Katy more than he should
have required, so that Bell was not far from right when in her journal
she described her sister-in-law as “a little servant whose feet were
never supposed to be tired, and whose wishes were never consulted.” It
is true Bell had put it rather strongly, but the spirit of what she said
was right, Wilford seldom considering Katy, or allowing her wishes to
interfere with his own plans; while accustomed to every possible
attention from his mother, he exacted the same from his wife, whose life
was not one of unmixed happiness, notwithstanding that every letter home
bore assurances to the contrary.




                             CHAPTER XVIII.
                            MARIAN HAZELTON.


The last days of June had come, and Wilford was beginning to make
arrangements for removing Katy from the city before the warmer weather.
To this he had been urged by Mark Ray’s remarking that Katy was not
looking as well as when he first saw her, one year ago. “She has grown
thin and pale,” he said. “Had Wilford remarked it?”

Wilford had not. She complained much of headache, but that was only
natural. Still he wrote to the Mountain House that afternoon to secure
rooms for himself and wife, and then at an earlier hour than usual went
home to tell her of the arrangement. Katy was out shopping, Esther said,
and had not yet returned, adding,

“There is a note for her up stairs, left by a woman who I guess came for
work.”

That a woman should come for work was not strange, but that she should
leave a note seemed rather too familiar; and when on going to the
library he saw it upon the table, he took it in his hand and examined
the superscription closely, holding it up to the light and forgetting to
open it in his perplexity and the train of thought it awakened.

“They are singularly alike,” he said, and still holding the note in his
hand he opened a drawer of his writing desk, which was always kept
locked, and took from it a _picture_ and a bit of soiled paper, on which
was written, “I am _not_ guilty, Wilford, and God will never forgive the
wrong you have done to me.”

There was no name or date, but Wilford knew whose hand had penned those
lines, and he sat comparing them with the “Mrs. Wilford Cameron” which
the strange woman had written. Then opening the note, he read that,
having returned to New York, and wishing employment either as seamstress
or dressmaker, Marian Hazelton had ventured to call upon Mrs. Cameron,
remembering her promise to give her work if she should desire it.

“Who is Marian Hazelton?” Wilford asked himself as he threw down the
missive. “Some of Katy’s country friends, I dare say. Seems to me I have
heard that name. She certainly writes as Genevra did, except that this
Hazelton’s is more decided and firm. Poor Genevra!”

There was a pallor about Wilford’s lips as he said this, and taking up
the picture he gazed for a long time upon the handsome, girlish face,
whose dark eyes seemed to look reproachfully upon him, just as they must
have looked when the words were penned, “God will never forgive the
wrong you have done to me.”

“Genevra was mistaken,” he said. “At least if God has not forgiven, he
has prospered me, which amounts to the same thing;” and without a single
throb of gratitude to Him who had thus prospered him, Wilford laid
Genevra’s picture and Genevra’s note back with the withered grass and
flowers plucked from Genevra’s grave, just as Katy’s ring was heard and
Katy herself came in.

As thoughts of Genevra always made Wilford kinder towards his wife, so
now he kissed her white cheek, noticing that, as Mark had said, it was
whiter than last year in June. But mountain air would bring back the
roses, he thought, as he handed her the note.

“Oh, yes, from Marian Hazelton,” Katy said, glancing first at the name
and then hastily reading it through.

“Who is Marian Hazelton?” Wilford asked, and Katy replied by repeating
all she knew of Marian, and how she chanced to know her at all. “Don’t
you remember Helen wrote that she fainted at our wedding, and I was so
sorry, fearing I might have overworked her?”

Wilford did remember something about it, and then dismissing Marian from
his mind, he told Katy of his plan for taking her to the Mountain House
a few weeks before going to Saratoga.

“Would you not like it?” he asked, as she continued silent, with her
eyes fixed upon the window opposite.

“Yes,” and Katy drew a long and weary breath. “I shall like any place
where there are birds, and rocks, and trees, and real grass, such as
grows of itself in the country; but Wilford,” and Katy crept close to
him now, “if I might go to Silverton, I should get strong so fast! You
don’t know how I long to see home once more. I dream about it nights and
think about it days, knowing just how pleasant it is there, with the
roses in bloom and the meadows so fresh and green. May I go, Wilford?
May I go home to mother?”

Had Katy asked for half his fortune, just as she asked to go home,
Wilford would have given it to her; but Silverton had a power to lock
all the softer avenues of his heart, and so he answered that the
Mountain House was preferable, that the rooms were engaged, and that as
he should enjoy it so much better he thought they would make no change.

Katy did not cry, nor utter a word of remonstrance; she was learning
that quiet submission was better than useless opposition, and so
Silverton was again given up. But there was one consolation. Seeing
Marian Hazelton would be almost as good as going home, for had she not
recently come from that neighborhood, bringing with her the odor from
the hills and freshness from the woods? Perhaps, too, she had lately
seen Helen or Morris at church, and had heard the music of the organ
which Helen played, and the singing of the children just as it sometimes
came to Katy in her dreams, making her start in her sleep and murmur
snatches of the sacred songs which Dr. Morris had taught. Yes, Marian
could tell her of all this, and very impatiently Katy waited for the
morning when she started for No.—— Fourth Street, with the piles of
sewing intended for Marian.

It was a fault of Marian’s not to remain long contented in any place.
Tiring of the country, she had returned to the city, and thinking she
might succeed better alone, had hired a room far up the narrow stairway
of a high, sombre-looking building, and then from her old acquaintances,
of whom she had several in the city, she had solicited work. More than
once she had passed the handsome house on Madison Square where Katy
lived, walking slowly, and contrasting it with her _one_ room, which was
not wholly uninviting, for where Marian went there was always an air of
comfort; and Katy, as she crossed the threshold, uttered an exclamation
of delight at the cheerful, airy aspect of the apartment, with its
bright ingrain carpet, its simple shades of white, its chintz-covered
lounge, its one rocking-chair, its small parlor stove, and its pots of
flowers upon the broad window sill.

“Oh Marian,” she exclaimed, tripping across the floor, and impulsively
throwing her arms around Miss Hazelton’s neck, “I am so glad to meet
some one from home. It seems almost like Helen I am kissing,” and her
lips again met those of Marian Hazelton, amid her joy at finding Katy
unchanged, wondered what the Camerons would say to see their Mrs.
Wilford kissing a poor seamstress whom they would have spurned.

But Katy did not care for _Camerons_ then, or even think of them, as in
her rich basquine and pretty hat, with emeralds and diamonds sparkling
on her fingers, she sat down by Marian.

“Tell me of Silverton; you don’t know how I want to go there; but
Wilford does not think it best, at present. Next fall I am surely going,
and I picture to myself just how it will look: Morris’s garden, full of
the autumnal flowers—the ripe peaches in our orchard, the grapes
ripening on the wall, and the long shadows on the grass, just as I used
to watch them, wondering what made them move so fast, and where they
could be going. Will it be unchanged, Marian? Do places seem the same
when once we have left them?” and Katy’s eager eyes looked wistfully at
Marian, who replied, “Not always—not often, in fact; but in your case
they may. You have not been long away.”

“Only a year,” Katy said. “I was as long as that in Canandaigua; but
this past year is different. I have seen so much, and lived so much,
that I feel ten years older than I did last spring, when you and Helen
made my wedding dress. Darling Helen! When did you see her last?”

“I was there five weeks ago,” Marian replied; “I saw them all, and told
them I was coming to New York.”

“Do they miss me any? Do they talk of me? Do they wish me back again?”
Katy asked, and Marian replied, “They talked of little else, that is
your own family. Dr. Morris, I think, did not mention your name. He has
grown very silent and reserved,” and Marian’s eyes were fixed
inquiringly upon Katy, as if to ascertain how much she knew of the cause
for Morris’s reserve.

But Katy had no suspicion, and only replied, “Perhaps he is vexed that I
do not write to him oftener, but I can’t. I think of him a great deal,
and respect him more than any living man, except, of course, Wilford;
but when I try to write, something comes in between me and what I wish
to say, for I want to convince him that I am _not_ as frivolous as he
thinks I am. I have _not_ forgotten the Sunday-school, nor the church
service; but in the city it is so hard to be good, and the service and
music seem all for show, and I feel so hateful when I see Juno and
Wilford’s mother putting their heads down on velvet cushions, knowing as
I do that they both are thinking either of their own bonnets or those
just in front.”

“Are you not a little uncharitable?” Marian asked, laughing in spite of
herself at the picture Katy drew of fashion trying to imitate religion
in its humility.

“Perhaps so,” Katy answered. “I grow bad from looking behind the scenes,
and the worst is that I do not care,” and then Katy went back again to
the farm-house asking numberless questions and reaching finally the
_business_ which had brought her to Marian’s room.

There were spots on Marian’s neck, and her lips were white, as she
grasped the bundles tossed into her lap—the yards and yards of lace and
embroidery, linen, and cambric, which she was expected to make for the
wife of Wilford Cameron; and her voice was husky as she asked directions
or made suggestions of her own.

“It’s because she has no such joy in expectation. I should feel so, too,
if I were thirty and unmarried,” Katy thought, as she noticed Marian’s
agitation, and tried to divert her mind by talking of Europe and the
places she had visited.

“By the way, you were born in England? Were you ever at Alnwick?” Katy
asked, and Marian replied, “Once, yes. I’ve seen the castle and the
church. Did you go there—to St. Mary’s, I mean?”

“Oh, yes, and I was never tired of that old churchyard. Wilford liked
it, too, and we wandered by the hour among the sunken graves and quaint
headstones.”

“Do you remember any of the names upon the stones? Perhaps I may know
them?” Marian asked; but Katy did not remember any, or if she did, it
was not “Genevra Lambert, aged 22.” And so Marian asked her no more
questions concerning Alnwick, but talked instead of London and other
places, until three hours went by, and down in the street the coachman
chafed and fretted at the long delay, wondering what kept his mistress
in that neighborhood so long. Had she friends, or had she come on some
errand of mercy? The latter most likely, he concluded, and so his face
was not quite so cross when Katy at last appeared, looking at her watch
and exclaiming at the lateness of the hour.

Katy was very happy that morning, for seeing Marian had brought
Silverton near to her, and airy as a bird she ran up the steps of her
own dwelling, where the door opened as by magic, and Wilford himself
confronted her, asking, with the tone which always made her heart beat,
where she had been, and he waiting for her two whole hours. “Surely it
was not necessary to stop so long with a seamstress,” he continued when
she tried to explain. “Ten minutes would suffice for directions,” and he
could not imagine what attraction there was in Miss Hazelton to keep her
there three hours, and then the real cause of his vexation came out. He
had come expressly for the carriage to take her and Sybil Grandon to a
picnic up the river, whither his mother, Juno and Bell, had already
gone. Mrs. Grandon must wonder why he stayed so long, and perhaps give
up going. Could Katy be ready soon? and Wilford walked rapidly up and
down the parlor with a restless motion of his hands which always
betokened impatience. Poor Katy! how the brightness of the morning
faded, and how averse she felt to joining that picnic, which she knew
had been in prospect for some time, and had fancied she should enjoy!
But not to-day, with that look on Wilford’s face, and the feeling that
he was vexed. Still she could think of no reasonable excuse, and so an
hour later found her driving into the country with Sybil Grandon, who
received her apologies with as much good-natured grace as if she too had
not worked herself into a passion at the delay, for Sybil had been very
cross and impatient; but all this vanished when she met Wilford and saw
that he was disturbed and irritated. Soft, and sweet, and smooth was she
both in word and manner, so that by the time the grove was reached
Wilford’s ruffled spirits had been soothed, and he was himself again,
ready to enjoy the pleasures of the day as keenly as if no harsh word
had been said to Katy, who, silent and unhappy, listened to the graceful
badinage between Sybil and her husband, thinking how differently his
voice had sounded when addressing her only a little while before.

“Pray put some animation into your face, or Mrs. Grandon will think we
have been quarreling,” Wilford whispered, as he lifted his wife from the
carriage, and with a great effort Katy tried to be gay and natural.

But all the while she was fighting back her tears and wishing she were
away. Even Marian’s room, looking into the dingy court, was preferable
to that place, and she was glad when the long day came to an end, and
with a fearful headache she was riding back to the city.

The next morning was dark and rainy; but in spite of the weather Katy
found her way to Marian’s room, this time taking the —— avenue cars,
which left her independent as regarded the length of her stay. About
Marian there was something more congenial than about her city friends,
and day after day found her there, watching while Marian fashioned into
shape the beautiful little garments, the sight of which had a strangely
quieting influence upon Katy, sobering her down and maturing her more
than all the years of her life had done. Those were happy hours spent
with Marian Hazelton, and Katy felt it keenly when Wilford at last
interfered, telling her she was growing quite too familiar with that
sewing woman, and her calls must be discontinued, except, indeed, such
as were necessary to the work in progress.

With one great gush of tears, when there was no one to see her, Katy
gave Marian up, writing her a note, in which were sundry directions for
the work, which would go on even after she had left for the Mountain
House, as she intended doing the last of June. And Marian guessed at
more than Katy meant she should, and with a bitter sigh laid it in her
basket, and then resumed the work, which seemed doubly monotonous now
that there was no more listening for the little feet tripping up the
stairs, or for the bird-like voice which had brought so much of music
and sunshine to her lonely room.




                              CHAPTER XIX.
                         SARATOGA AND NEWPORT.


For three weeks Katy had been at the Mountain House, growing stronger
every day, until she was much like the Katy of one year ago. But their
stay among the Catskills was ended, and on the morrow they were going to
Saratoga, where Mrs. Cameron and her daughters were, and where, too, was
Sybil Grandon, the reigning belle of the United States. So Bell had
written to her brother, bidding him hasten on with Katy, as she wished
to see “that chit of a widow in her proper place.” And Katy had been
weak enough for a moment to feel a throb of satisfaction in knowing how
effectually Sybil’s claims to belle-ship would be put aside when she was
once in the field; even glancing at herself in the mirror as she leaned
on Wilford’s shoulder, and feeling glad that mountain air and mountain
exercise had brought the roses back to her white cheeks and the
brightness to her eyes. But Katy wept passionate tears of repentance for
that weakness, when an hour later she read the letter which Dr. Grant
had sent in answer to one she had written from the Mountain House,
confessing her short-comings, and lamenting that the evils and excesses
which shocked her once did not startle her now. To this letter Morris
had replied as a brother might write to an only sister, first expressing
pleasure at her happiness, and then reminding her of that other life to
which this is only a preparation, and beseeching her so to use the good
things of this world, given her in such profusion, as not to lose the
life eternal.

This was the substance of Morris’s letter, which Katy read with
streaming eyes, forgetting Saratoga as Morris’s solemn words of warning
and admonition rang in her ears, and shuddering as she thought of losing
the life eternal, of going where Morris would never come, nor any of
those she loved the best, unless it were Wilford, who might reproach her
with having dragged him there when she could have saved him.

“Keep yourself unspotted from the world,” Morris had said, and she
repeated it to herself, asking “how shall I do that? how can one be good
and fashionable too?”

Then laying her head upon the rock where she was sitting, Katy tried to
pray as she had not prayed in months, asking that God would teach her
what she ought to know and keep her unspotted from the world. But at the
Mountain House it is easier to pray that one be kept from temptation
than it is at Saratoga, which this summer was crowded to overflowing,
its streets presenting a fitting picture of Vanity Fair, so full were
they of show and gala dress. At the United States, where Mrs. Cameron
stopped, two rooms, for which an enormous price was paid, had been
reserved for Mr. and Mrs. Wilford Cameron, and this of itself would have
given them a certain éclat, even if there had not been present many who
remembered the proud, fastidious bachelor, and were proportionately
anxious to see his wife. _She came, she saw, she conquered_; and within
three days after her arrival Katy Cameron was the acknowledged belle of
Saratoga, from the United States to the Clarendon. And Katy, alas, was
not quite the same as she who on the mountain ridge had sat with
Morris’s letter in her hand, praying that its teachings might not be
forgotten. Saratoga seemed different to her from New York, and she
plunged into its gaieties, never pausing, never tiring, and seldom
giving herself time to think; much less to pray, as Morris had bidden
her do. And Wilford, though hardly able to recognize the usually timid
Katy in the brilliant woman who led rather than followed, was sure of
her faith to him, and so was only proud and gratified to see her bear
off the palm from every competitor, while Juno, though she quarreled
with the shadow into which she was so completely thrown, enjoyed the
éclat cast upon their party by the presence of Mrs. Wilford, who had
passed beyond her criticism. Sybil Grandon, too, stood back in wonder
that a simple country girl should win and wear the laurels she had so
long claimed as her own; but as there was no help for it she contented
herself as best she could with the admiration she did receive, and
whenever opportunity occurred, said bitter things of Mrs. Wilford, whose
parentage and low estate were through her pretty generally known. But it
did not matter there what Katy _had been_; the people took her for what
she _was now_, and Sybil’s glory faded like the early dawn in the coming
of the full day.

As it had been at Saratoga, so it was at Newport. Urged on by Mrs.
Cameron and Bell, who enjoyed her notoriety, Katy plunged into the mad
excitement of dancing and driving and coqueting, until Wilford himself
became uneasy, locking her once in her room, where she was sleeping
after dinner, and conveniently forgetting to release her until after the
departure at evening of some young men from Cambridge, whose attentions
to the Ocean House belle had been more strongly marked than was
altogether agreeable to him. Of course it was a mistake—the locking of
the door—and a great oversight in him not to have remembered it sooner,
he said to Katy, by way of apology; and Katy, with no suspicion of the
truth, laughed merrily at the joke, repeating it downstairs to the old
dowagers, who shrugged their shoulders meaningly and whispered to each
other that it might be well if more young wives were locked into their
rooms and thus kept out of mischief.

Though flattered, caressed, and admired, Katy was not doing herself much
credit at Newport; but save Wilford, there was no one to raise a warning
voice, until Mark Ray came down for a few days’ respite from the heated
city, where he had spent the entire summer, taking charge of the
business which belonged as much to Wilford as to himself. But Wilford
had a wife; it was more necessary that he should leave, Mark had argued;
his time would come by and by. And so he had remained at home until the
last of August, when he appeared suddenly at the Ocean House one night
when Katy, in her airy robes and child-like simplicity, was breaking
hearts by the score. Like others, Mark was charmed, and not a little
proud for Katy’s sake, to see her thus appreciated; but when one day’s
experience had shown him more, and given him a look behind the scenes,
he trembled for her, knowing how hard it would be for her to come out of
that sea of dissipation as pure and spotless as she went in.

“If I were her brother I would warn her that her present career is not
one upon which she will look back with pleasure when the excitement is
over,” he said to himself; “but if Wilford is satisfied it is not for me
to interfere. It is surely nothing to me what Katy Cameron does,” he
kept repeating to himself; but as often as he said it there came up
before him a pale, anxious face, shaded with Helen Lennox’s bands of
hair, and Helen Lennox’s voice whispered to him: “Save Katy, for my
sake,” and so next day, when Mark found himself alone with Katy, while
most of the guests were at the beach, he questioned her of her life at
Saratoga and Newport, and gradually, as he talked, there crept into
Katy’s heart a suspicion that he was not pleased with her account, or
with what he had seen of her since his arrival.

For a moment Katy was indignant, but when he said to her kindly: “Would
Helen be pleased?” her tears started at once, and she attempted an
excuse for her weak folly, accusing Sybil Grandon as the first cause of
the ambition for which she hated herself.

“She had been held up as my pattern,” she said, half bitterly, and
forgetting to whom she was talking—“she, the one whom I was to imitate;
and when I found that I could go beyond her, I yielded to the
temptation, and exulted to see how far she was left behind. Besides
that,” she continued, “is it no gratification, think you, to let
Wilford’s proud mother and sister see the poor country girl, whom
ordinarily they would despise, stand where they cannot come, and even
dictate to them if she chooses so to do? I know it is wrong—I know it is
wicked—but I like the excitement, and so long as I am with these people
I shall never be any better. Mark Ray, you don’t know what it is to be
surrounded by a set who care for nothing but fashion and display, and
how they may outdo each other. I hate New York society. There is nothing
there but husks.”

Katy’s tears had ceased, and on her white face there was a new look of
womanhood, as if in that outburst she had changed, and would never again
be just what she was before.

“Say,” she continued, “do _you_ like New York society?”

“Not always—not wholly,” Mark answered; “and still you misjudge it
greatly, for all are not like the people you describe. Your husband’s
family represent one extreme, while there are others equally high in the
social scale who do not make fashion the rule of their lives—sensible,
cultivated, intellectual people, of whose acquaintance one might be
glad—people whom I fancy your sister Helen would enjoy. I have only met
her twice, but my impression is that _she_ would not find New York
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 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 for 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, nor does it matter, as I
shall not remain much longer. I do not need her now, since you have
shown me how foolish I have been. I was angry at first, but now I thank
you for it, and so will 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, 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 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 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. 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 dictate to his mother, if she chose, and he did not care to see
her relinquish it.

But Katy remained true to herself. Dropping her girlish playfulness, she
assumed a quiet, gentle dignity, which became her even better than her
gayer mood had done, making her ten times more popular and more sought
after, until she begged to go away, persuading Wilford at last to name
the day for their departure, and then, never doubting for a moment that
her destination was Silverton, she wrote to Helen that she should be
home on such a day, and as they would come by way of Providence and
Worcester, they would probably reach West Silverton at ten o’clock, A.
M.

“Wilford,” she added in a postscript, “has gone down to bathe, and as
the mail is just closing, I shall send this letter without his seeing
it. Of course it can make no difference, for I have talked all summer of
coming, and he understands it.”




                              CHAPTER XX.
                         MARK RAY AT SILVERTON.


The last day of summer was dying out in a fierce storm of rain which
swept in sheets across the Silverton hills, hiding the pond from view,
and beating against the windows of the farm-house, whose inmates were
nevertheless unmindful of the storm save as they hoped the morrow would
prove bright and fair, such as the day should be which brought them back
their Katy. Nearly worn out with constant reference was her letter, the
mother catching it up from time to time to read the part referring to
herself, where Katy had told how blessed it would be “to rest again on
mother’s bed,” just as she had so often wished to do, “and hear mother’s
voice;” the deacon spelling out by his spluttering tallow candle, with
its long, smoky wick, what she had said of “darling old Uncle Eph,” and
the rides into the fields; Aunt Betsy, too, reading mostly from memory
the words: “Good old Aunt Betsy, with her skirts so limp and short, tell
her she will look handsomer to me than the fairest belle at Newport;”
and as often as Aunt Betsy read it she would ejaculate: “The land! what
kind of company must the child have kept?” wondering next if Helen had
never written of the _hoop_, for which she paid a dollar, and which was
carefully hung in her closet, waiting for the event of to-morrow, while
the hem of her pongee had been let down and one breadth gored to
accommodate the hoop. On the whole, Aunt Betsy expected to make a
stylish appearance before the little lady of whom she stood in awe,
always speaking of her to the neighbors as “My niece, Miss Cammen, from
New York,” and taking good care to report what she had heard of “Miss
Cammen’s” costly dress and the grandeur of her house, where the
furniture of the best chamber cost over fifteen hundred dollars.

“What could it be?” Aunt Betsy had asked in her simplicity, feeling an
increased respect for Katy, and consenting the more readily to the
change in her pongee, as suggested to her by Helen.

But that was for to-morrow when Katy came; to-night she only wore a
dotted brown, whose hem just reached the top of her “bootees,” as she
went to strain the milk brought in by Uncle Ephraim, while Helen took
her position near the window, looking drearily out upon the leaden
clouds, and hoping it would brighten before the morrow. Like the others,
Helen had read Katy’s letter many times, dwelling longest upon the part
which said: “I have been so bad, so frivolous and wicked here at
Newport, that it will be a relief to make you my confessor, depending,
as I do, upon your love to grant me absolution.”

From a family in Silverton, who had spent a few days at a private house
in Newport, Helen had heard something of her sister’s life; the lady had
seen her once driving a tandem team down the avenue, with Wilford at her
side giving her instructions. Since then there had been some anxiety
felt for her at the farm-house, and more than Dr. Grant had prayed that
she might be kept unspotted from the world; but when her letter came, so
full of love and self-reproaches, the burden was lifted, and there was
nothing to mar the anticipations of the event for which they had made so
many preparations, Uncle Ephraim going to the expense of buying at
auction a half-worn covered buggy, which he fancied would suit Katy
better than the corn-colored wagon in which she used to ride. To pay for
this the deacon had parted with the money set aside for the “_great
coat_” he so much needed for the coming winter, his old gray having done
him service for fifteen years. But his comfort was nothing compared with
Katy’s happiness, and so, with his wrinkled face beaming with delight,
he had brought home his buggy, putting it carefully in the barn, and
saying no one should ride in it till Katy came. With untiring patience
the old man mended up his harness, for what he had heard of Katy’s
driving had impressed him strongly with her powers of horsemanship, and
raised her somewhat in his respect. Could he have afforded it Uncle
Ephraim in his younger days would have been a horse jockey, and even now
he liked nothing better than to make Old Whitey run when alone in the
strip of woods between his house and the head of the pond.

“Katy inherits her love of horses from me,” he said complacently; and
with a view of improving Whitey’s style and mettle, he took to feeding
him on oats, talking to him at times, and telling him who was coming.

Dear, simple-hearted Uncle Ephraim! the days which he must wait seemed
long to him as they did to the other members of his family. But they
were all gone now,—Katy would be home on the morrow, and with the
shutting in of night the candles were lighted in the sitting-room, and
Helen sat down to her work, wishing it was to-night that Katy was
coming. As if in answer to her wish there was the sound of wheels, which
stopped before the house, and dropping her work Helen ran quickly to the
door, just as from under the dripping umbrella held by a driver boy, a
tall young man sprang upon the step, nearly upsetting her, but passing
an arm around her shoulders in time to keep her from falling.

“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 moving down the road ere Helen had recovered
her surprise at recognizing Mark Ray, who shook the rain-drops 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 was 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 Sybil Grandon would have
given her best diamond to have had in her own natural right the heavy
coil of hair bound so many times around the back of Helen’s head, and
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 for 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.”

“Your mother mend socks!” and Helen started so suddenly as to run the
point of her darning-needle a long way into her thumb, the wound
bringing a stream of blood which she tried to wipe away with her
handkerchief.

“Bind it tightly round. Let me show you, please,” Mark said, and ere she
was aware of what she was doing, Helen was quietly permitting the young
man to wind her handkerchief around her thumb which he held in his hand,
pressing it until the blood ceased flowing, and the sharp pain had
abated.

Perhaps Mark Ray liked holding that small, warm hand, even though it
were not as white and soft as Juno’s; at all events he did hold it until
Helen drew it from him with a quick, sudden motion, telling him it would
do very well, and she would not trouble him. Mark did not look as if he
had been troubled, but went back to his seat and took up the
conversation just where the needle had stopped it.

“My mother did not always mend herself, but she caused it to be done,
and sometimes helped. I remember she used to say a woman should know how
to do everything pertaining to a household, and she carried out her
theory in the education of my sister.”

“Have you a sister?” Helen asked, now really interested, and listening
intently while Mark told her of his only sister Julia, now Mrs. Ernst,
whose home was in New Orleans, though she at present was in Paris, and
his mother was there with her. “After Julia’s marriage, nine years ago,
mother went to live with her,” he said, “but latterly, as the little
Ernsts increase so fast, she wishes for a more quiet home, and this
winter she is coming to New York to keep house for me.”

Helen thought she might like Mark’s mother, who, he told her, had been
twice married, and was now Mrs. Banker, and a widow. She must be
different from Mrs. Cameron; and Helen let herself down to another
degree of toleration for the man whose mother taught her daughter to
mend the family socks. Still there was about her a reserve, which Mark
wondered at, for it was not thus that ladies were accustomed to receive
his advances. He did not guess that Wilford Cameron stood between him
and Helen’s good opinion; but when, after the family came in, the
conversation turned upon Katy and her life in New York, the secret came
out in the sharp, caustic manner with which she spoke of New York and
its people.

“It’s Will and the Camerons,” Mark thought, blaming Helen less than he
would have done, if he, too, had not known something of the Cameron
pride.

It was a novel position in which Mark found himself that night, an
inmate of a humble farm-house, where he could almost touch the ceiling
with his hand, and where his surroundings were so different from what he
had been accustomed to; but, unlike Wilford Cameron, he did not wish
himself away, nor feel indignant at Aunt Betsy’s old-fashioned ways, or
Uncle Ephraim’s grammar. He noticed Aunt Betsy’s oddities, it is true,
and noticed Uncle Ephraim’s grammar; but the sight of Helen sitting
there, with so much dignity and self-respect, made him look beyond all
else, straight into her open face and clear brown eyes, where there was
nothing obnoxious or distasteful. Her language was correct, her manner,
saving a little stiffness, lady-like and refined: and Mark enjoyed his
situation as self-invited guest, making himself so agreeable that Uncle
Ephraim forgot his hour of retiring, nor discovered his mistake until,
with a loud yawn, Aunt Betsy told him that it was half-past nine, and
she was “desput sleepy.”

Owing to Helen’s influence there had been a change of the olden custom,
and instead of the long chapter, through which Uncle Ephraim used to
plod so wearily, there were now read the Evening Psalms. Aunt Betsy
herself joined in the reading, which she mentally classed with the
“quirks,” but confessed to herself that it “was most as good as the
Bible.”

As there were only Prayer Books enough for the family, Helen, in
distributing them, purposely passed Mark by, thinking he might not care
to join them. But when the verse came round to Helen he quickly drew his
chair near to hers, and taking one side of her book, performed his part,
while Helen’s face grew red as the blossoms in her hair, and her hand,
so near to Mark’s, trembled visibly.

“A right nice chap, and not an atom stuck up,” was Aunt Betsy’s mental
comment, and then, as he often will do, Satan followed the saintly woman
even to her knees, making her wonder if “Mr. Ray hadn’t some notion
after Helen.” She hoped not, for she meant that Morris should have
Helen, “though if ’twas to be it was, and she should not go agin it;”
and while Aunt Betsy thus settled the case, Uncle Ephraim’s prayer
ended, and the conscience-smitten woman arose from her knees with the
conviction that “the evil one had got the better of her once,” mentally
asking pardon for her wandering thoughts and promising to do better.

Mark was in no haste to retire, and when Uncle Ephraim offered to
conduct him to his room, he frankly answered that he was not sleepy,
adding, as he turned to Helen: “Please let me stay until Miss Lennox
finishes her socks. There are several pairs yet undarned. I will not
detain you, though,” he continued, bowing to Uncle Ephraim, who, a
little uncertain what to do, finally departed, as did Aunt Hannah and
his sister, leaving Helen and her mother to entertain Mark Ray. It had
been Mrs. Lennox’s first intention to retire also, but a look from Helen
kept her, and she sat down by that basket of socks, while Mark wished
her away. Awhile they talked of Katy and New York, Mark laboring to
convince Helen that its people were not all heartless and fickle, and at
last citing his mother as an instance.

“You would like mother, Miss Lennox. I hope you will know her some
time,” he said, and then they talked of books, Helen forgetting that
Mark was city-bred in the interest with which she listened to him, while
Mark forgot that the girl who appreciated and understood his views
almost before they were expressed, was country born, and clad in homely
garb, with no ornaments save those of her fine mind and the sparkling
face turned so fully towards him.

“Mark Ray is not like Wilford Cameron,” Helen said to herself, when as
the clock was striking eleven she bade him good night and went up to her
room, and opening her window she leaned her hot cheek against the wet
casement, and looked out upon the night, now so beautiful and clear, for
the rain was over, and up in the heavens the bright stars were shining,
each one bearing some resemblance to Mark’s eyes as they kindled and
grew bright with his excitement, resting always kindly on her—on Helen,
who leaning thus from the window, felt stealing over her that feeling
which, once born, can never be quite forgotten.

Helen did not recognize the feeling, for it was a strange one to her.
She was only conscious of a sensation half pleasurable, half sad, of
which Mark Ray had been the cause, and which she tried in vain to put
aside. And then there swept over her a feeling of desolation such as she
had never experienced before, a shrinking from living all her life in
Silverton, as she fully expected to do, and laying her head upon the
little stand, she cried passionately.

“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 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, and which softened the somewhat too
intellectual expression of her face, and made 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 down stairs, 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, 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 skillfully as if hair-dressing 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
round. 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.

“Tie that apron round me, then,” he said, with the utmost nonchalance,
and Helen obeyed, tying her check apron around the young man’s neck, who
felt her hands as they touched his hair, and knew that they were
brushing queer fancies into his brain—fancies which made him wonder what
his mother would think of Helen, or what she would say if she knew just
how he was occupied that morning, absolutely churning cream until it
turned to butter, for Mark persisted until the task was done, standing
by while Helen gathered up the golden lumps, and admiring her plump,
round arms quite as much as he had her neck.

She would be a belle like her sister, though of a different stamp, he
thought, as he again bent down his head while she removed the apron and
disclosed more than one big spot upon his broadcloth. Mark assured her
that it did not matter; his coat was nearly worn out, and any way he
never should regret that he had _churned_ once in his life, or forget it
either; and then he asked if Helen would be in New York the coming
winter, talking of the pleasure it would be to meet her there, until
Helen began to feel what she never before had felt, a desire to visit
Katy in her own home.

“Remember if you come that I am your debtor for numerous hospitalities,”
he said, when he at last bade her good-bye and sprang into the covered
buggy, which Uncle Ephraim had brought out in honor of Katy’s arrival.

                  *       *       *       *       *

Old Whitey was hitched at a safe distance from all possible harm. Uncle
Ephraim had returned from the store near by, laden with the six pounds
of crush sugar and the two pounds of real old Java he had been
commissioned to purchase with a view to Katy’s taste, and now upon the
platform at West Silverton his stood, with Mark Ray, waiting for the
arrival of the train just appearing in view across the level plain.

“It’s fifteen months since she went away,” he said, and Mark saw that
the old man’s form trembled with the excitement of meeting her again,
while his eyes scanned eagerly every window and door of the cars now
slowly stopping before him. “There, there!” and he laid his hand
nervously on Mark’s shoulder, as a white, jaunty feather appeared in
view; but that was not Katy, and the dim eyes ran again along the whole
line of the cars, from which so many were alighting.

But Katy did not come, and with a long breath of wonder and
disappointment the deacon said: “Can it be she is asleep? Young man, you
are spryer than I. Go through the cars and find her.”

Mark knew there was plenty of time, and so he made the tour of the cars,
but found, alas, no Katy.

“She’s not there,” was the report carried to the poor old man, who
tremblingly repeated the words: “Not there, not come!” while over his
aged face there broke a look of touching sadness, which Mark never
forgot, remembering it always just as he remembered the big tear drops
which from his seat by the window he saw the old man wipe away with his
coat-sleeve, as whispering softly to Whitey of his disappointment he
unhitched the horse and drove away alone.

“Maybe she’s writ. I’ll go and see,” he said, and driving to their
regular office he found a letter directed by Wilford Cameron, but
written by Katy; but he could not read it then, and thrusting it into
his pocket he went slowly back to the home where the tempting dinner was
prepared and the family waiting so eagerly for him. Even before he
reached them they knew of the disappointment, for from the garret window
Helen had watched the road by which he would come, and when the buggy
appeared in sight she saw he was alone.

There was a mistake; Katy had missed the train, she said to her mother
and aunts, who hoped she might be right. But Katy had not missed the
train, as was indicated by the letter which Uncle Ephraim without a word
put into Helen’s hand, leaning on old Whitey’s neck while she read aloud
the attempt at an explanation which Katy had hurriedly written, a stain
on the paper where a tear had fallen, attesting her distress at the
bitter disappointment.

“Wilford did not know of the other letter,” she said, “and had made
arrangements for her to go back with him to New York, inasmuch as the
house was already opened and the servants there wanting a _head_;
besides that, Wilford had been absent so long that he could not possibly
stop at Silverton himself, and as he would not think of living without
her, even for a few days, there was no alternative but for her to go
with him on the boat directly to New York. I am sorry, oh, so sorry, but
indeed I am not to blame,” she added in conclusion, and this was the
nearest approach there was to an admission that anybody was to blame for
this disappointment which cut so cruelly, making Uncle Ephraim cry, as
out in the barn he hung away the mended harness and covered the new
buggy, which had been bought for naught.

“I might have had the overcoat, for Katy will never come home again,
never. God grant that it’s the Cameron pride, not hers that kept her
from us,” the old man said, as on the hay he knelt down and prayed that
Katy had not learned to despise the home where she was so beloved.

“Katy will never come to us again,” seemed the prevailing opinion at
Silverton, where more than Uncle Ephraim felt a chilling doubt at times
as to whether she really wished to come or not. If she did, it seemed
easy of accomplishment to those who knew not how perfect and complete
were the fetters thrown around her, and how unbending the will which
governed hers. Could they have seen the look in Katy’s face when she
first understood that she was not going to Silverton, their hearts would
have bled for the thwarted creature who fled up the stairs to her own
room, where Esther found her twenty minutes later, cold and fainting
upon the bed, her face as white as ashes, and her hands clenched so
tightly that the nails left marks upon the palms.

“It was not strange that the poor child should faint—indeed, it was only
natural that nature should give way after so many weeks of gayety, and
she very far from being strong,” Mrs. Cameron said to Wilford, who was
beginning to repent of his decision, and who but for that remark perhaps
might have revoked it.

Indeed, he made an attempt to do so when, as consciousness came back,
Katy lay so pale and still before him; but Katy did not understand him,
or guess that he wished her to meet him more than half the way, and so
the verdict was unchanged, and in a kind of bewilderment, Katy wrote the
hurried letter, feeling less actual pain than did its readers, for the
disappointment had stunned her for a time, and all she could remember of
the passage home on that same night when Mark Ray sat with Helen in the
sitting-room at Silverton, was that there was a fearful storm of rain
mingled with lightning flashes and thunder peals, which terrified the
other ladies, but brought to her no other sensation save that it would
not be so very hard to perish in the dark waters dashing so madly about
the vessel’s side.




                              CHAPTER XXI.
                              A NEW LIFE.


                                             New York, December 16, 18—.

  ‘TO MISS HELEN LENNOX, SILVERTON, MASS:

  “Your sister is very ill. Come as soon as possible.

                                                            W. CAMERON.”

This was the purport of a telegram received at the farm-house toward the
close of a chill December day, and Helen’s heart almost stopped its
beating as she read it aloud, and then looked in the white, scared faces
of those around her. Katy was very ill—dying, perhaps—or Wilford had
never telegraphed. What could it be? What was the matter? Had it been
somewhat later, they would have known; but now all was conjecture, and
in a half-distracted state, Helen made her hasty preparations for the
journey of the morrow, and then sent for Morris, hoping he might offer
some advice or suggestion, for her to carry to that sick room in New
York.

“Perhaps you will go with me,” Helen said. “You know Katy’s
constitution. You might save her life.”

But Morris shook his head. If he was needed they might send and he would
come, but not without; and so next day he carried Helen to the cars,
saying to her as they were waiting for the train, “I hope for the best,
but it may be Katy will die. If you think so, tell her, oh, tell her, of
the better world, and ask if she is prepared? I cannot lose her in
Heaven.”

And this was all the message Morris sent, though his heart and prayers
went after the rapid train which bore Helen safely onward, until
Hartford was reached, where there was a long detention, so that the dark
wintry night had closed over the city ere Helen reached it, timid,
anxious, and wondering what she should do if Wilford was not there to
meet her. “He will be, of course,” she kept repeating to herself,
looking around in dismay, as passenger after passenger left, seeking in
stages and street cars a swifter passage to their homes.

“I shall soon be all alone,” she said, feeling some relief as the car in
which she was seated began at last to move, and she knew she was being
taken whither the others had gone, wherever that might be.

“Is Miss Helen Lennox here?” sounded cheerily in her ears as she stopped
before the depot, and Helen uttered a cry of joy, for she recognized the
voice of Mark Ray, who was soon grasping her hand, and trying to
reassure her, as he saw how she shrank from the noise and clamor of New
York, heard now for the first time. “Our carriage is here,” he said, and
in a moment she found herself in a close-covered vehicle, with Mark
sitting opposite, tucking the warm blanket around her, asking if she
were cold, and paying those numberless little attentions so gratifying
to one always accustomed to act and think for herself.

Helen could not see Mark’s face distinctly; but full of fear for Katy,
she fancied there was a sad tone in his voice, as if he were keeping
back something he dreaded to tell her; and then, as it suddenly occurred
to her that Wilford should have met her, not Mark, her great fear found
utterance in words, and leaning forward so that her face almost touched
Mark’s she said, “Tell me, Mr. Ray, is Katy dead?”

“Not dead, oh no, nor very dangerous, my mother hopes; but she kept
asking for you, and so my—that is, Mr. Cameron sent the telegram.”

There was an ejaculatory prayer of thankfulness, and then Helen
continued, “Is it long since she was taken sick?”

“Her little daughter will be a week old to-morrow,” Mark replied; while
Helen, with an exclamation of surprise she could not repress, sank back
into the corner, faint and giddy with the excitement of this fact, which
invested little Katy with a new dignity, and drew her so much nearer to
the sister who could scarcely wait for the carriage to stop, so anxious
was she to be where Katy was, to kiss her dear face once more, and
whisper the words of love she knew she must have longed to hear.

Awe-struck, bewildered and half terrified, Helen looked up at the huge
brown structure, which Mark designated as “the place.” It was so lofty,
so grand, so like the Camerons, and so unlike the farm-house far away,
that Helen trembled as she followed Mark into the rooms flooded with
light, and seeming to her like fairy land. They were so different from
anything she had imagined, so much handsomer than even Katy’s
descriptions had implied, that for the moment the sight took her breath
away, and she sank passively into the chair Mark brought for her,
himself taking her muff and tippet, and noting, as he did so, that they
were not mink, nor yet Russian sable, but well-worn, well-kept fitch,
such as Juno would laugh at and criticise. But Helen’s dress was a
matter of small moment to Mark, and he thought more of the look in her
dark eyes than of all the furs in Broadway, as she said to him, “You are
very kind, Mr. Ray. I cannot thank you enough.” This remark had been
wrung from Helen by the feeling of homesickness which swept over her, as
she thought how really alone she should be there, in her sister’s house,
on this first night of her arrival, if it were not for Mark, thus
virtually taking the place of the brother-in-law, who should have been
there to greet her.

“He was with Mrs. Cameron,” the servant said, and taking out a card Mark
wrote down a few words, and handing it to the servant who had been
looking curiously at Helen, he continued standing until a step was heard
on the stairs and Wilford came quietly in.

It was not a very loving meeting, but Helen was civil and Wilford was
polite offering her his hand and asking some questions about her
journey.

“I was intending to meet you myself,” he said, “but Mrs. Cameron does
not like me to leave her, and Mark kindly offered to take the trouble
off my hands.”

He was looking pale and anxious, while there was on his face the light
of a new joy, as if the little life begun so short a time ago had
brought an added good to him, softening his haughty manner and making
him even endurable to the prejudiced sister watching him so closely.

“Does Phillips know you are here?” he asked, answering his own query by
ringing the bell and bidding Esther, who appeared, tell Phillips that
Miss Lennox had arrived, and wished for supper, explaining to Helen that
since Katy’s illness they had dined at three, as that accommodated them
the best.

This done and Helen’s baggage ordered to her room, he seemed to think he
had discharged his duty as host, and as Mark had left he began to grow
fidgety, for a tête-à-tête with Helen was not what he desired. He had
said to her all he could think to say, for it never once occurred to him
to inquire after the deacon’s family. He had asked for Dr. Grant, but
his solicitude went no further, and the inmates of the farm-house might
have been dead and buried for aught he knew to the contrary. The
omission was not made purposely, but because he really did not feel
enough of interest in people so widely different from himself even to
ask for them, much less to suspect how Helen’s blood boiled as she
detected the omission and imputed it to intended slight, feeling glad
when he excused himself, saying he must go back to Katy, but would send
his mother down to see her. _His mother._ Then _she_ was there, the one
whom Helen dreaded most of all, whom she had invested with every
possible terror, hoping now that she would not be in haste to come down.
She might have spared herself anxiety on this point, as the lady in
question was not anxious to meet a person who, could she have had her
way, would not have been there at all.

From the first moment of consciousness after the long hours of suffering
Katy had asked for Helen, rather than her mother.

“Send for Helen; I am so tired, and she could always rest me,” was her
reply, when asked by Wilford what he could do for her. “Send for Helen;
I want her so much,” she had said to Mrs. Cameron, when she came,
repeating the wish until a consultation was held between the mother and
son, touching the propriety of sending for Helen. “She would be of no
use whatever, and might excite our Katy. Quiet is highly important just
now,” Mrs. Cameron had said, thus veiling under pretended concern for
Katy her aversion to the girl whose independence in declining her
dressmaker had never been forgiven, and whom she had set down in her
mind as rude and ignorant.

“If her coming would do Katy harm she ought not to come,” Wilford
thought, while Katy in her darkened room moaned on—

“Send for sister Helen; please send for sister Helen.”

At last, on the fourth day, Mrs. Banker, Mark Ray’s mother, came to the
house, and in consideration of the strong liking she had evinced for
Katy ever since her arrival in New York, and the great respect felt for
her by Mrs. Cameron, she was admitted to the chamber and heard the
plaintive pleadings, “Send for sister Helen,” until her motherly heart
was touched, and as she sat with her son at dinner she spoke of the
young girl-mother moaning so for Helen.

Whether it was Mark’s great pity for Katy, or whether he was prompted by
some more selfish motive, we do not profess to say, but that he was
greatly excited was very evident from his manner as he exclaimed:

“Why not send for Helen, then? She is a splendid girl, and they idolize
each other. Talk of _her_ injuring Katy, that’s all a humbug. She is
just fitted for a nurse. Almost the sight of her would cure one of
nervousness, she is so calm and quiet.”

This was what Mark said, and the next morning Mrs. Banker’s carriage
stood at the door of No.—— Madison Square, while Mrs. Banker herself was
talking to Wilford in the library, and urging that Helen be sent for at
once.

“It may save her life. She is more feverish to-day than yesterday, and
this constant asking for her sister will wear her out so fast,” she
added, and that last argument prevailed.

Helen was sent for, and now sat waiting in the parlor for the coming of
Mrs. Cameron. Wilford did not mean Katy to hear him as he whispered to
his mother that Helen was below; but she did, and her blue eyes flashed
brightly as she started from her pillow, exclaiming:

“I am so glad, so glad! Kiss me, Wilford, because I am so glad. Does she
know? Have you told her? Wasn’t she surprised, and will she come up
quick?”

They could not quiet her at once, and only the assurance that unless she
were more composed, Helen should not see her that night, had any effect
upon her; but when they told her that, she lay back upon her pillow
submissively, and Wilford saw the great tears dropping from her hot
cheeks, while the pallid lips kept softly whispering “Helen.” Then the
sister love took another channel, and she said:

“She has not been to supper, and Phillips is always cross at extras.
Will somebody see to it. Send Esther to me, please. Esther knows and is
good-natured.”

“Mother will do all that is necessary. She is going down,” Wilford said;
but Katy had quite as much fear of leaving Helen to “mother” as to
Phillips, and insisted upon Esther until the latter came, receiving
numerous injunctions as to the jam, the sweetmeats, the peaches, and the
cold ham Helen must have, each one being remembered as her favorite.

Wholly unselfish, Katy thought nothing of herself or the effort it cost
her to care for Helen; but when it was over and Esther was gone, she
seemed so utterly exhausted that Mrs. Cameron did not leave her, but
stayed at her bedside, until the extreme paleness was gone, and her eyes
were more natural. Meanwhile the supper, which as Katy feared had made
Phillips cross, had been arranged by Esther, who conducted Helen to the
dining-room, herself standing by and waiting upon her because the one
whose duty it was had gone out for the evening, and Phillips had
declined the “honor,” as she styled it.

There was a homesick feeling tugging at Helen’s heart while she tried to
eat, and only the certainty that Katy was not far away kept her tears
back. To her the very grandeur of the house made it desolate, and she
was so glad it was Katy who lived there and not herself as she went up
the soft carpeted stairway, which gave back no sound, and through the
marble hall to the parlor, where, by the table on which her cloak and
furs were lying, a lady stood, as dignified and unconscious as if she
had not been inspecting the self-same _fur_ which Mark Ray had observed,
but not, like him, thinking it did not matter, for it did matter very
materially with her, and a smile of contempt had curled her lip as she
turned over the tippet which Phillips would not have worn.

“I wonder how long she means to stay, and if Wilford will have to take
her out,” she was thinking, just as Helen appeared in the door and
advanced into the room.

By herself, it was easy to slight Helen Lennox, but in her presence Mrs.
Cameron found it very hard to appear as cold and distant as she had
meant to do, for there was something about Helen which commanded her
respect, and she went forward to meet her, offering her hand and saying
cordially:

“Miss Lennox, I presume—my daughter Katy’s sister?”

Helen had not expected this, and the warm flush which came to her cheeks
made her very handsome, as she returned Mrs. Cameron’s greeting, and
then asked more particularly for Katy than she had yet done. For a while
they talked together, Mrs. Cameron noting carefully every item of
Helen’s attire, as well as the purity of her language and her perfect
repose of manner after the first stiffness had passed away.

“Naturally a lady as well as Katy; there must be good blood somewhere,
probably on the Lennox side,” was Mrs. Cameron’s private opinion, while
Helen, after a few moments, began to feel far more at ease with Mrs.
Cameron than she had done in the dining-room with Esther waiting on her,
and the cross Phillips stalking once through the room for no ostensible
purpose except to get a sight of her.

Helen wondered at herself, and Mrs. Cameron wondered too, trying to
decide whether it were ignorance, conceit, obtuseness, or what, which
made her so self-possessed when she was expected to appear so different.

“Strong-minded,” was her final decision, as she said at last, “We
promised Katy she should see you to-night. Will you go now?”

Then the color left Helen’s face and lips and her limbs shook
perceptibly, for the knowing she was soon to meet her sister unnerved
her; but by the time the door of Katy’s room was reached she was herself
again, and there was no need for Mrs. Cameron to whisper, “Pray do not
excite her.”

Katy heard her coming, and it required all Wilford’s and the nurse’s
efforts to keep her quiet.

“Helen, Helen, darling, darling sister!” she cried, as she wound her
arms around Helen’s neck, and laid her golden head on Helen’s bosom,
sobbing in a low, mournful way which told Helen more how she had been
longed for than did the weak voice which whispered, “I’ve wanted you so
much, oh Helen; you don’t know how much I’ve missed you all the years
I’ve been away. You will not leave me now,” and Katy clung closer to the
dear sister who gently unclasped the clinging arms and put back upon the
pillow the quivering face, which she kissed so tenderly, whispering in
her own old half soothing, half commanding way, “Be quiet now, Katy.
It’s best that you should. No, I will not leave you.”

Next to Dr. Grant Helen had more influence over Katy than any living
being, and it was very apparent now, for, as if her presence had a power
to soothe, Katy grew very quiet, and utterly wearied out, slept for a
few moments with Helen’s hand fast locked in hers. When she awoke the
tired look was gone, and turning to her sister she said, “Have you seen
my baby?” while the young mother-love which broke so beautifully over
her pale face, made it the face of an angel.

“It seems so funny that it is Katy’s baby,” Helen said, taking the puny
little thing, which with its wrinkled face and red, clinched fists was
not very attractive to her, save as she looked at it with Katy’s eyes.

She did not even kiss it, but her tears dropped upon its head as she
thought how short the time since up in the old garret at home she had
dressed rag dolls for the Katy who was now a mother. And still in a
measure she was the same, hugging Helen fondly when she said good night,
and welcoming her so joyfully in the morning when she came again,
telling her how just the sight of her sitting there by baby’s crib did
her so much good.

“I shall get well so fast,” she said; and she was right, for Helen was
worth far more to her than all the physician’s powders, and Wilford was
glad that Helen came, even if she did sometimes shock him with her
independent ways, upsetting all his plans and theories with regard to
Katy, and meeting him on other grounds with an opposition as puzzling as
it was new to him.

To Mrs. Cameron Helen was a study; she seemed to care so little for what
others might think of her, evincing no hesitation, no timidity, when
told the second day after her arrival that Mrs. Banker was in the
parlor, and had asked to see Miss Lennox. Mrs. Cameron did not suspect
how under that calm, unmoved exterior, Helen was hiding a heart which
beat painfully as she went down to meet the mother of Mark Ray, going
first to her own room to make some little change in her toilet, and
wishing that her dress was more like the dress of those around her—like
Mrs. Cameron’s, or even _Esther’s_ and the fashionable nurse’s. One
glance she gave to the brown silk, Wilford’s gift, but her good sense
told her that the plain merino she wore was more suitable to the sick
room where she spent her time, and so with a fresh collar and cuffs, and
another brush of her hair, she went to Mrs. Banker, forgetting herself
in her pleasure at finding in the stranger a lady so wholly congenial
and familiar, whose mild, dark eyes rested so kindly on her, and whose
pleasant voice had something motherly in its tone, putting her at her
ease, and making her appear at her very best.

Mrs. Banker was pleased with Helen, and she felt a kind of pity for the
young girl thrown so suddenly among strangers, without even her sister
to assist her.

“Have you been out at all?” she asked, and upon Helen’s replying that
she had not, she answered, “That is not right. Accustomed to the fresh
country air, you will suffer from too close confinement. Suppose you
ride with me. My carriage is at the door, and I have a few hours’
leisure. Tell your sister I insist,” she continued, as Helen hesitated
between inclination and what she fancied was her duty.

To see New York with Mrs. Banker was a treat indeed, and Helen’s heart
bounded high as she ran up to Katy’s room with the request.

“Yes, go by all means,” Katy said. “It is so kind in Mrs. Banker, and so
like her, too. I meant that Wilford should have driven with you to-day,
and spoke to him about it, but Mrs. Banker will do better. Tell her I
thank her so much for her thoughtfulness,” and with a kiss Katy sent
Helen away, while Mrs. Cameron, after twisting her rings nervously for a
moment, said to Katy:

“Perhaps your sister will do well to wear your furs. Hers are small, and
common fitch.”

“Yes, certainly. Take them to her,” Katy answered, knowing intuitively
the feeling which had prompted this suggestion from her mother-in-law,
who hastened to Helen’s room with the rich sable she was to wear in
place of the old fitch.

Helen appreciated the difference at once between her furs and Katy’s and
felt a pang of mortification as she saw how old and poor and _dowdy_
hers were beside the others. But they were her own—the best she could
afford. She would not begin by borrowing, and so she declined the offer,
and greatly to Mrs. Cameron’s horror went down to Mrs. Banker clad in
the despised furs, which Mrs. Cameron would on no account have had
beside her on Broadway in an open carriage. Mrs. Banker noticed them,
too, but the eager, happy face, which grew each moment brighter as they
drove down the street, more than made amends; and in watching that and
pointing out the places which they passed, Mrs. Banker forgot the furs
and the coarse straw hat whose strings of black had undeniably been
dyed. Never in her life had Helen enjoyed a ride as she did that
pleasant winter day, when her kind friend took her wherever she wished
to go, showing her Broadway in its glory from Union Square to Wall
Street, where they encountered Mark in the bustling crowd. He saw them,
and beckoned to them, while Helen’s face grew red, as, lifting his hat
to her, he came up to the carriage, and at his mother’s suggestion took
a seat just opposite, asking where they had been, and jocosely laughing
at his mother’s taste in selecting such localities as the Five Points,
the Tombs and Barnum’s Museum, when there were so many finer places to
be seen.

Helen felt the hot blood pricking the roots of her hair for the Five
Points, the Tombs and Barnum’s Museum had been her choice as the points
of which she had heard the most. So when Mark continued:

“You shall ride with me, Miss Lennox, and I will show you something
worth your seeing,” she frankly answered:

“Your mother is not in fault, Mr. Ray. She asked me where I wished to
go, and I mentioned these places; so please attribute it wholly to my
country breeding, and not to your mother’s lack of taste.”

There was something in the frank speech which won Mrs. Banker’s heart,
while she felt an increased respect for the young girl, who, she saw,
was keenly sensitive, even with all her strength of character.

“You were right to commence as you have,” she said, “for now you have a
still greater treat in store, and Mark shall drive you to the Park some
day. I know you will like that.”

Helen could like anything with that friendly voice to reassure her, and
leaning back she was thinking how pleasant it was to be in New York, how
different from what she had expected, when a bow from Mark made her look
up in time to see that they were meeting a carriage, in which sat
Wilford, with two gayly dressed ladies, both of whom gave her a
supercilious stare as they passed by, while the younger of the two half
turned her head, as if for a more prolonged gaze.

“Mrs. Grandon and Juno Cameron,” Mrs. Banker said, making some further
remark to her son, while Helen felt that the brightness of the day had
changed, for she could not be unconscious of the look with which she had
been regarded by these two fashionable ladies, and again her _furs_ came
up before her, bringing a felling of which she was ashamed, especially
as she had fancied herself above all weakness of the kind.

That night at the dinner, from which Mrs. Cameron was absent, Wilford
was unusually gracious, asking “if she had enjoyed her ride, and if she
did not find Mrs. Banker a very pleasant acquaintance.”

Wilford felt a little uncomfortable at having suffered a stranger to do
for Katy’s sister what should have been done by himself. Katy had asked
him to drive with Helen, but he had found it very convenient to forget
it, and take a seat instead with Juno and Mrs. Grandon, the latter of
whom complimented “Miss Lennox’s fine intellectual face,” after they had
passed, and complimented it the more as she saw how it vexed Juno, who
could see nothing “in those bold eyes and that masculine forehead,” just
because their _vis-à-vis_ chanced to be Mark Ray. Juno was not pleased
with Helen’s first appearance in the street, but nevertheless she called
upon her next day, with Sybil Grandon and her sister Bell. To this she
was urged by Sybil, who, having a somewhat larger experience of human
nature, foresaw that Helen would be popular just because Mrs. Banker had
taken her up, and who, besides, had conceived a capricious fancy to
patronize Miss Lennox. But in this she was foiled, for Helen was not to
_be_ patronized, and she received her visitors with that calm, assured
manner so much a part of herself.

“Diamond cut diamond,” Bell thought, as she saw how frigidly polite both
Juno and Helen were, each recognizing in the other something
antagonistic, which could not harmonize.

Had Juno never cared for Dr. Grant, or suspected Helen of standing
between herself and him, and had Mark Ray never stopped at Silverton, or
been seen on Broadway with her, she might have judged her differently,
for there was something attractive in Helen’s face and appearance as she
sat talking to her guests, with as much quiet dignity as if she had
never mended Uncle Ephraim’s socks or made a pound of butter among the
huckleberry hills. Bell was delighted, detecting at once traces of the
rare mind which Helen Lennox possessed, and wondering to find it so.

“I hope we shall see each other often,” she said, at parting. “I do not
go out a great deal myself—that is, not so much as Juno—but I shall be
always glad to welcome you to my _den_. You may find something there to
interest you.”

This was Bell’s leave-taking, while Sybil’s was, if possible, more
friendly, for she took a perverse kind of pleasure in annoying Juno, who
wondered “what she or Bell could see to like in that awkward country
girl, who she knew had on one of Katy’s cast-off collars, and whose
wardrobe was the most ordinary she ever saw; _fitch furs_, think of
that!” and Juno gave a little pull at the fastenings of her rich ermine
collar, showing so well over her velvet basquine.

“Fitch furs or not, they rode with Mark Ray on Broadway,” Bell retorted,
with a wicked look in her eye, which roused Juno to a still higher pitch
of anger, so that by the time the carriage stopped at No.——, the young
lady was in a most unamiable frame of mind as regarded both Helen Lennox
and the offending Mark.

That evening there was at Mrs. Reynolds’s a little company of thirty or
more, and as Mark was present, Juno seized the opportunity of
ascertaining, if possible, his real opinion of Helen Lennox, joking him
first about his having taken her to ride so soon, and insinuating that
he must have a _penchant_ for every new and pretty face.

“Then you think her pretty? You have called on her?” Mark replied, his
manner evincing so much pleasure that Juno bit her lip to keep down her
wrath, and flashing upon him her scornful eyes, replied: “Yes, Sybil and
Bell insisted that I should. Of myself I would never have done it, for I
have now more acquaintances than I can attend to, and do not care to
increase the list. Besides that, I do not imagine that Miss Lennox can
in any way add to my happiness, brought up as she has been among the
woods and hills, you know.”

“Yes, I have been there—to her home, I mean,” Mark rejoined, and Juno
continued:

“Only for a moment, though. You should have stayed, like Will, to
appreciate it fully. I wish you could hear him describe the feather beds
on which he slept—that is, describe them before he decided to take Katy;
for after that he was chary of his remarks, and the feathers by some
marvelous process were changed into hair, for what he knew or cared.”

Mark hesitated a moment, and then said, quietly:

“I have stayed there all night, and have tested that feather bed, but
found nothing disparaging to Helen, who was as much a lady in the
farm-house as here in the city.”

There was a look of withering scorn on Juno’s face as she replied,

“Pray, how long since you took to visiting Silverton so
frequently—becoming so familiar as to spend the night?”

There was no mistaking the jealousy which betrayed itself in every tone
of Juno’s voice as she stood before Mark, a fit picture of the enraged
goddess whose name she bore. Soon recollecting herself, however, she
changed her mode of attack, and said, laughingly,

“Seriously, though, this Miss Lennox seems a very nice girl, and is
admirably fitted, I think, for the position she is to fill—that of a
_country physician’s wife_,” and in the black eyes there was a wicked
sparkle as Juno saw that her meaning was readily understood, Mark
looking quickly at her, and asking if she referred to Dr. Grant.

“Certainly; I imagine that was settled as long ago as we met him in
Paris. Once I thought it might have been our Katy, but was mistaken. I
think the doctor and Miss Lennox well adapted to each other.”

There was for a moment a dull, heavy pain at Mark’s heart, caused by
that little item of information which made him so uncomfortable. On the
whole he did not doubt it, for everything he could recall of Morris had
a tendency to strengthen the belief. Nothing could be more probable,
thrown together as they had been, without other congenial society, and
nothing could be more suitable.

“They _are_ well matched,” Mark thought, as he walked listlessly through
Mrs. Reynolds’s parlors, seeing only one face, and _that_ the face of
Helen Lennox, with the lily in her hair, just as it looked when she tied
the apron about his neck and laughed at his appearance.

Helen was not the ideal which in his boyhood Mark had cherished of the
one who was to be his wife, for that was of a woman more like Juno, with
whom he had always been on the best of terms, giving her some reason for
believing herself the favored one; but ideals change as years go on, and
Helen Lennox had more attractions for him now than the most dashing
belle of his acquaintance.

“I do not believe I am in love with her,” he said to himself when, after
his return from Mrs. Reynolds’s he sat for a long time before the fire
in his dressing-room, cogitating upon what he had heard, and wondering
why it should affect him so much. “Of course I am not,” he continued,
feeling the necessity of reiterating the assertion by way of making
himself believe it. “She is not at all what I used to imagine the future
Mrs. Mark Ray to be. Half my friends would say she had no style, no
beauty, and perhaps she has not. Certainly she does not look just like
the ladies at Mrs. Reynolds’s to-night, but give her the same advantages
and she would surpass them all.”

And then Mark Ray went off into a reverie, in which he saw Helen Lennox
his wife, and with the aids by which he would surround her, rapidly
developing into as splendid a woman as little Katy Cameron, who did not
need to be developed, but took all hearts at once by that natural,
witching grace so much a part of herself. It was a very pleasant picture
which Mark painted upon the mental canvas; but there came a great blur
blotting out its brightness as he remembered Dr. Grant.

“But it shall not interfere with my being just as kind to her as before.
She will need some attendant here, and Wilford will be glad to shove her
off his hands. He is so infernal proud,” Mark said, and taking a fresh
cigar he finished his reverie with the magnanimous resolve that were
Helen a hundred times engaged she should be his especial care during her
sojourn in New York.




                             CHAPTER XXII.
                           HELEN IN SOCIETY.


It was three days before Christmas, and Katy was talking confidentially
to Mrs. Banker, whom she had asked to see the next time she called.

“I want so much to surprise her,” she said, speaking in a whisper, “and
you have been so kind to us both that I thought it might not trouble you
very much if I asked you to make the selection for me, and see to the
engraving. Wilford gave me fifty dollars, all I needed, as I had fifty
more of my own, and now that I have a baby, I am sure I shall never
again care to go out.”

“Yes,” Mrs. Banker said, thoughtfully, as she rolled up the bills, “you
wish me to get as heavy bracelets as I can find—for the hundred
dollars.”

“Yes,” Katy replied, “I think that will please her, don’t you?”

Mrs. Banker did not reply at once, for she felt certain that the hundred
dollars could be spent in a manner more satisfactory to Helen. Still she
hardly liked to interfere, until Katy, observing her hesitancy, asked
again if she did not think Helen would be pleased.

“Yes, pleased with anything you choose to give her, but—excuse me, dear
Mrs. Cameron, if I speak as openly as if I were the mother of you both.
Bracelets are suitable for you who have everything else, but is there
not something your sister needs more? Now, allowing me to suggest, I
should say, buy her some _furs_, and let the bracelets go. In Silverton
her furs were well enough, but here, as the sister of Mrs. Wilford
Cameron, she is deserving of better.”

Katy understood Mrs. Banker at once, her cheeks reddening as there
flashed upon her the reason _why_ Wilford had never yet been in the
street with Helen, notwithstanding that she had more than once requested
it.

“You are right,” she said. “It was thoughtless in me not to think of
this myself. Helen shall have the furs, and whatever else is necessary.
I am so glad you reminded me of it. You are as kind as my own mother,”
and Katy kissed her friend fondly as she bade her good-bye, charging her
a dozen times not to let Helen know the surprise in store for her.

There was little need of this caution, for Mrs. Banker understood human
nature too well to divulge a matter which might wound one as sensitive
as Helen. Between the latter and herself there was a strong bond of
friendship, and to the kind patronage of this lady Helen owed most of
the attentions she had as yet received from her sister’s friends, while
Mark Ray did much toward lifting her to the place she held in spite of
the common country dress, which Juno unsparingly criticised, and which,
in fact, kept Wilford from taking her out as his wife so often asked him
to do. And Helen, too, keenly felt the difference between herself and
those with whom she came in contact, crying over it more than once, but
never dreaming of the surprise in store for her, when on Christmas
morning she went as usual to Katy’s room, finding her alone, her face
all aglow with excitement, and her bed a perfect show-case of dry goods,
which she bade Helen examine and say how she liked them.

Wilford was no niggard with his money, and when Katy had asked for more
it had been given unsparingly, even though he knew the purpose to which
it was to be applied.

“Oh, Katy, Katy, why did you do it?” Helen cried, her tears falling like
rain through the fingers she clasped over her eyes.

“You are not angry?” Katy said, in some dismay, as Helen continued to
sob without looking at the handsome furs, the stylish hat, the pretty
cloak, and rich patterns of blue and black silk, which Mrs. Banker had
selected.

“No, oh no!” Helen replied. “I know it was all meant well; but there is
something in me which rebels against taking this from Wilford, and
placing myself under so great obligation to him.”

“It was a pleasure for him to do it,” Katy said, trying to reassure her
sister, until she grew calm enough to examine and admire the Christmas
gifts upon which no expense had been spared. Much as we may ignore
dress, and sinful as is an inordinate love for it, there is yet about it
an influence for good, when the heart of the wearer is right, holding it
subservient to all higher, holier affections. At least Helen Lennox
found it so, when clad in her new garments, she drove with Mrs. Banker,
or returned Sybil Grandon’s call, feeling that there was about her
nothing for which Katy need to blush, or even Wilford, who was not
afraid to be seen with her now, and Helen, while knowing the reason of
the change, did not feel like quarreling with him for it, but accepted
with a good-natured grace all that made her life in New York so happy.
With Bell Cameron she was on the best of terms; while Sybil Grandon,
always going with the tide, professed for her an admiration, which,
whether fancied or real, did much toward making her popular; and when,
as the mistress of her brother’s house, she issued cards of invitation
for a large party, she took especial pains to insist upon Helen’s
attending, even if Katy was not able. But from this Helen shrank. She
could not meet so many strangers alone, she said, and so the matter was
dropped, until Mrs. Banker offered to chaperone her, when Helen began to
waver, changing her mind at last and promising to go.

Never since the days of _her_ first party had Katy been so wild with
excitement as she was in helping to dress Helen, who scarcely knew
herself when, before the mirror, with the blaze of the chandelier
falling upon her, she saw the picture of a young girl arrayed in rich
pink silk, with an overskirt of lace, and the light pretty cloak, just
thrown upon her uncovered neck, where Katy’s pearls were shining.

“What would they say at home if they could only see you?” Katy
exclaimed, throwing back the handsome cloak so as to show more of the
well-shaped neck, gleaming so white beneath it.

“Aunt Betsy would say I had forgotten half my dress,” Helen replied,
blushing as she glanced at the arms, which never since her childhood had
been thus exposed to view, except at such times as her household duties
had required it.

Even this exception would not apply to the low neck, at which Helen had
long demurred, yielding finally to Katy’s entreaties, but often
wondering what Mark Ray would think, and if he would not be shocked.
Mark Ray had been strangely blended with all Helen’s thoughts as she
submitted herself to Esther’s practiced hands, and when the
hair-dresser, summoned to her aid, asked what flowers she would wear, it
was a thought of him which led her to select a single water lily, which
looked as natural as if its bed had really been the bosom of Fairy Pond.

“Nothing else? Surely mademoiselle will have these few green leaves?”
Celine had said, but Helen would have nothing save the lily, which was
twined tastefully amid the heavy braids of the brown hair, whose length
and luxuriance had thrown the hair-dresser into ecstasies of delight,
and made Esther lament that in these days of false tresses no one would
give Miss Lennox credit for what was wholly her own.

“You will be the belle of the evening,” Katy said as she kissed her
sister good night and then ran back to her baby, while Wilford, yielding
to her importunities that he should not remain with her, followed Mrs.
Banker’s carriage in his own private conveyance, and was soon set down
at Sybil Grandon’s door.

Meanwhile, at the elder Cameron’s there had been a discussion touching
the propriety of their taking Helen under their protection, instead of
leaving her for Mrs. Banker to chaperone, Bell insisting that it ought
to be done, while the father swore roundly at Juno, who would not “be
bothered with that country girl.”

“You would rather leave her wholly to Mark Ray and his mother, I
suppose,” Bell said, adding, as she saw the flush on Juno’s face, “You
know you are dying of jealousy, and nothing annoys you so much as to
hear people talk of Mark’s attentions to _Miss Lennox_.”

“Do they talk?” Mrs. Cameron asked quickly, while in her gray eyes there
gleamed a light far more dangerous and threatening to Helen than Juno’s
open scorn.

Mrs. Cameron had long intended Mark Ray for her daughter, and accustomed
to have everything bend to her wishes, she had come to consider the
matter as certain, even though he had never proposed in words. He had
done everything else, she thought, attending Juno constantly, and
frequenting their house so much that it was a standing joke for his
friends to seek him there when he was not at home or at his office.
Latterly, however, there had been a change, and the ambitious mother
could not deny that since Helen’s arrival in New York Mark had visited
them less frequently and stayed a shorter time, while she had more than
once heard of him at her son’s in company with Helen. Very rapidly a
train of thought passed through her mind; but it did not manifest itself
upon her face, which was composed and quiet as she decided with Juno
that Helen should not trouble them. With the utmost care Juno arrayed
herself for the party, thinking with a great deal of complacency how
impossible it was for Helen Lennox to compete with her in point of
dress.

“She is such a prude, I dare say she will go in that blue silk, with the
long sleeves and high neck, looking like a Dutch doll,” she said to
Bell, as she shook back the folds of her rich crimson, and turned her
head to see the effect of her wide braids of hair.

“I am not certain that a high dress is worse than bones,” Bell retorted,
playfully touching Juno’s neck, which, though white and gracefully
formed, was shockingly guiltless of flesh.

There was an angry reply, and then, wrapping her cloak about her, Juno
went out to their carriage, and was ere long one of the gay crowd
thronging Sybil Grandon’s parlors. Helen had not yet arrived, and Juno
was hoping she would not come, when there was a stir at the door and
Mrs. Banker appeared, and with her Helen Lennox, but so transformed that
Juno hardly knew her, looking twice ere sure that the beautiful young
lady, so wholly self-possessed, was the country girl she affected to
despise.

“Who is she?” was asked by many, who at once acknowledged her claims to
their attention, and as soon as practicable sought her acquaintance, so
that Helen suddenly found herself the centre of a little court of which
she was the queen and Mark her sworn knight.

Presuming upon his mother’s chaperonage, he claimed the right of
attending her, and Juno’s glory waned as effectually as it had done when
Katy was the leading star to which New York paid homage.

Juno had been annoyed then, but now fierce jealousy took possession of
her heart as she watched the girl whom all seemed to admire, even
Wilford feeling a thrill of pride that the possession of so attractive a
sister-in-law reflected credit upon himself.

He was not ashamed of her now, nor did he retain a single thought of the
farm-house or Uncle Ephraim as he made his way to her side, standing
protectingly at her left, just as Mark was standing at her right, and at
last asking her to dance.

With a heightened color Helen declined, saying frankly,

“I have never learned.”

“You miss a great deal,” Wilford rejoined, appealing to Mark for a
confirmation of his words.

But Mark did not heartily respond. He, too, had solicited Helen as a
partner when the dancing first commenced, and her quiet refusal had
disappointed him a little, for Mark was fond of dancing, and though as a
general thing he disapproved of waltzes and polkas when he was the
looker-on, he felt that there would be something vastly agreeable and
exhilarating in clasping Helen in his arms and whirling her about the
room just as Juno was being whirled by a young cadet, a friend of
Lieutenant Bob’s. But when he reflected that not his arm alone would
encircle her waist, or his breath touch her neck, he was glad she did
not dance, and professing a weariness he did not feel, he declined to
join the dancers on the floor, but kept with Helen, enjoying what she
enjoyed, and putting her so perfectly at her ease that no one would ever
have dreamed of the curdy cheeses she had made, or the pounds of butter
she had churned. But Mark thought of it as he secretly admired the neck
and arms, seen once before, on that memorable day when he assisted Helen
in the labors of the dairy. If nothing else had done so, the lily in her
hair would have brought that morning to his mind, and once as they
walked up and down the hall he spoke of the ornament she had chosen, and
how well it became her.

“Pond lilies are my pets,” he said, “and I have kept one of those I
gathered when at Silverton. Do you remember them?” and his eyes rested
upon Helen with a look which made her blush as she answered yes; but she
did not tell him of a little box at home, made of cones and acorns,
where was hidden a withered water lily, which she could not throw away,
even after its beauty and fragrance had departed.

Had she told him this, it might have put to flight the doubts troubling
Mark so much, and making him wonder if Dr. Grant had really a claim upon
the girl stealing his heart so fast.

“I mean to sound her,” he thought, and as Lieutenant Bob passed by,
making some jocose remark about his offending all the fair ones by the
course he was taking, Mark said to Helen, who suggested returning to the
parlor,

“As you like, though it cannot matter; a person known to be engaged is
above Bob Reynolds’s jokes.”

Quiet as thought the blood stained Helen’s face and neck, for Mark had
made a most egregious blunder giving her the impression that _he_ was
the engaged one referred to, not herself, and for a moment she forgot
the gay scene around her in the sharpness of the pang with which she
recognized all that Mark Ray was to her.

“It was kind in him to warn me. I wish it had been sooner,” she thought,
and then with a bitter feeling of shame she wondered how much he had
guessed of her real feelings, and who the betrothed one was. “Not Juno
Cameron,” she hoped, as after a few moments Mrs. Cameron came up and,
adroitly detaching Mark from her side, took his place while he sauntered
to a group of ladies and was ere long dancing merrily with Juno.

“They are a well-matched pair,” Mrs. Cameron said, assuming a very
confidential manner towards Helen, who assented to the remark, while the
lady continued, “There is but one thing wrong about Mark Ray. He is a
most unscrupulous flirt, pleased with every new face, and this of course
annoys _Juno_.”

“Are they engaged?” came involuntarily from Helen’s lips, while Mrs.
Cameron’s foot beat the carpet with a very becoming hesitancy, as she
replied, “That was settled in our family a long time ago. Wilford and
Mark have always been like brothers.”

Mrs. Cameron could not quite bring herself to a deliberate falsehood,
which, if detected, would reflect upon her character as a lady, but she
could mislead Helen, and she continued, “It is not like us to bruit our
affairs abroad, and were my daughters ten times engaged the world would
be none the wiser. I doubt if even Katy suspects what I have admitted;
but knowing how fascinating Mark can be, and that just at present he
seems to be pleased with you, I have acted as I should wish a friend to
act toward my own child. I have warned you in time. Were it not that you
are one of _our family_, I might not have interfered, and I trust you
not to repeat even to Katy what I have said.”

Helen nodded assent, while in her heart was a wild tumult of
feelings—flattered pride, disappointment, indignation, and mortification
all struggling for the mastery—mortification to feel that she who had
quietly ignored such a passion as love when connected with herself, had,
nevertheless, been pleased with the attentions of one who was only
amusing himself with her, as a child amuses itself with some new toy
soon to be thrown aside—indignation at him for vexing Juno at her
expense—disappointment that he should care for such as Juno, and
flattered pride that Mrs. Cameron should include her in “our family.”
Helen had as few weak points as most young ladies, but she was not free
from them all, and the fact that Mrs. Cameron had taken her into a
confidence which even Katy did not share, was soothing to her ruffled
spirits, particularly as after that confidence, Mrs. Cameron was
excessively gracious to her, introducing her to many whom she did not
know before, and paying her numberless little attentions, which made
Juno stare, while the clear-seeing Bell arched her eyebrows, and
wondered for what Helen was to be made a _cat’s paw_ by her clever
mother. Whatever it was it did not appear, save as it showed itself in
Helen’s slightly changed demeanor when Mark again sought her society,
and tried to bring back to her face the look he had left there. But
something had come between them, and the young man racked his brain to
find the cause of this sudden indifference in one who had been pleased
with him only a short half hour before.

“It’s that confounded waltzing which disgusted her,” he said, “and no
wonder, for if ever a man looks like an idiot, it is when he is kicking
up his heels to the sound of a fiddle, and whirling some woman whose
skirts sweep everything within the circle of a rod, and whose face wears
that die-away expression I have so often noticed. I’ve half a mind to
swear I’ll never dance again.”

But Mark was too fond of dancing to quit it at once, and finding Helen
still indifferent, he yielded to circumstances, and the last she saw of
him, as at a comparative early hour she left the gay scene, he was
dancing again with Juno. It was a heavy blow to Helen, for she had
become greatly interested in Mark Ray, whose attentions had made her
stay in New York so pleasant. But these were over now;—at least the
excitement they brought was over, and Helen, as she sat in her
dressing-room at home, and thought of the future as well as the past,
felt stealing over her a sense of desolation and loneliness such as she
had experienced but once before, and that on the night when leaning from
her window at the farm-house where Mark Ray was stopping she had
shuddered and shrank from living all her days among the rugged hills of
Silverton. New York had opened an entirely new world to her, showing her
much that was vain and frivolous, with much too that was desirable and
good; and if there had crept into her heart the thought that a life with
such people as Mrs. Banker and those who frequented her house would be
preferable to a life in Silverton, where only Morris understood her, it
was but the natural result of daily intercourse with one who had studied
to please and interest as Mark Ray had done. But Helen had too much good
sense and strength of will, long to indulge in what she would have
called “love-sick regrets” in others, and she began to devise the best
course for her to adopt hereafter, concluding finally to treat him much
as she had done, lest he should suspect how deeply she had been wounded.
Now that she knew of his engagement, it would be an easy matter so to
demean herself as neither to annoy Juno nor vex him. Thoroughly now she
understood why Juno Cameron had seemed to dislike her so much.

“It is natural,” she said, “and yet I honestly believe I like her better
for knowing what I do. There must be some good beneath that proud
exterior, or Mark would never seek her.”

Still, look at it from any point she chose, it seemed a strange,
unsuitable match, and Helen’s heart ached sadly as she finally retired
to rest, thinking what _might have been_ had Juno Cameron found some
other lover more like herself than Mark could ever be.




                             CHAPTER XXIII.
                              BABY’S NAME.


Wilford had wished for a son, and in the first moment of disappointment
he had almost been conscious of a resentful feeling toward Katy, who had
given him only a daughter. A boy, a Cameron heir, was something of which
to be proud; but a little girl, scarcely larger than the last doll with
which Katy had played, was a different thing, and it required all
Wilford’s philosophy and common sense to keep him from showing his
chagrin to the girlish creature, whose love had fastened with an
idolatrous grasp upon her child, clinging to it with a devotion which
made Helen tremble as she thought what if God should take it from her.

“He won’t, oh, he won’t,” Katy said, when once she suggested the
possibility, and in the eyes usually so soft and gentle there was a
fierce gleam, as Katy hugged her baby closer to her and said,

“God does not willfully torment us. He will not take my baby, when my
whole life would die with it. I had almost forgotten to pray, there was
so much else to do, till baby came, but now I never go to sleep at night
or waken in the morning, that there does not come a prayer of thanks for
baby given to me. I could hardly love God if he took her away.”

There was a chill feeling at Helen’s heart as she listened to her sister
and then glanced at the baby so passionately loved. In time it would be
pretty, for it had Katy’s perfect features, and the hair just beginning
to grow was a soft, golden brown; but it was too small now, too puny to
be handsome, while in its eyes there was a scaled, hunted kind of look,
which chafed Wilford more than aught else could have done, for that was
the look which had crept into Katy’s eyes at Newport when she found she
was not going home.

Many discussions had been held at the elder Cameron’s concerning its
name, Mrs. Cameron deciding finally that it should bear her own,
_Margaret Augusta_, while Juno advocated that of _Rose Marie_, inasmuch
as their new clergyman would Frenchify the pronunciation so perfectly,
rolling the r, and placing so much accent on the last syllable. At this
the father Cameron swore as “_cussed nonsense_.” “Better call it
_Jemima_, a grand sight, than saddle it with such a silly name as Rose
Mah-_ree_, with a roll to the _r_,” and with another oath the disgusted
old man departed, while Bell suggested that _Katy_ might wish to have a
voice in naming her own child.

This was a possibility that had formed no part of Mrs. Cameron’s
thoughts, or Juno’s. Of course Katy would acquiesce in whatever Wilford
said was best, and he always thought as they did. Consequently there
would be no trouble whatever. It was time the child had a name,—time it
wore the elegant christening robe, Mrs. Cameron’s gift, which cost more
money than would have fed a hungry family for weeks. The matter must be
decided, and with a view of deciding it, a family dinner party was held
at No.——, Fifth Avenue, the day succeeding Sybil Grandon’s party.

Very pure and beautiful Katy looked as she took her old place in the
chair they called hers at father Cameron’s, because it was the one she
had always preferred to any other,—a large, motherly easy-chair, which
took in nearly the whole of her petite figure, and against whose soft
cushioned back she leaned her curly head with a pretty air of
importance, as, after dinner was over, she came back to the parlor with
the other ladies, and waited for the gentlemen to join them, when they
were to talk up baby’s name.

Katy knew exactly what it would be called, but as Wilford had never
asked her, she was keeping it a secret, not doubting that the others
would be quite as much delighted as herself with the novel name. Not
long before her illness she had read an English story, which had in it a
_Genevra_, and she had at once seized upon it as the most delightful
cognomen a person could well possess. “_Genevra Cameron!_” She had
repeated it to herself many a time as she sat with her baby in her lap.
She had written it on sundry slips of paper, which had afterwards found
their way into the grate; and once she had scratched with her diamond
ring upon the window pane in her dressing-room, where it now stood in
legible characters, “_Genevra Cameron!_” There should be no middle name
to take from the sweetness of the first—only Genevra—that was
sufficient; and the little lady tapped her foot impatiently upon the
carpet, wishing Wilford and his father would hurry and come in.

Never for an instant had it entered her mind that she, as the mother,
would not be permitted to call her baby what she chose; so when she
heard Mrs. Cameron speaking to Helen of _Margaret Augusta_, she smiled
complacently, tossing her curls of golden brown, and thinking to
herself, “Maggie Cameron—pretty enough, but not like Genevra. Indeed, I
shall not have any Margarets now; next time perhaps I may.”

The gentlemen came at last, and father Cameron drew his chair close to
Katy’s side, laying his hand on her little soft warm one, and giving it
a squeeze as the bright face glanced lovingly into his. Father Cameron
had grown a milder, gentler man since Katy came. He now went much
oftener into society, and did not so frequently shock his wife with
expressions and opinions which she held as heterodox. Katy had a
softening influence over him, and he loved her as well perhaps as he had
ever loved his own children.

“Better,” Juno said; and now she touched Bell’s arm, to have her see
“how father was petting Katy.”

But Bell did not care, while Wilford was pleased, and himself drew
nearer the chair, standing just behind it, so that Katy could not see
him as he smoothed her curly head, and said, half indifferently, “Now
for the all-important name. What shall we call our daughter?”

“Let your mother speak first,” Katy said, and thus appealed to, Mrs.
Cameron came up to Wilford and expressed her preference for _Margaret_,
as being a good name, an aristocratic name, and her own.

“Yes, but not half so pretty and striking as Rose Marie,” Juno chimed
in.

“Rose Mary! Thunder!” father Cameron exclaimed. “Call her a _marygold_,
or a _sunflower_, just as much. Don’t go to being fools by giving a
child a heathenish name. Give us your opinion, Katy.”

“_I_ have known from the first,” Katy replied, “and I am sure you will
agree with me. ’Tis a beautiful name of a sweet young girl, and there
was a great secret about her, too—GENEVRA, baby will be called,” and
Katy looked straight into the fire, wholly unconscious of the effect
that name had produced upon Wilford and his mother.

Wilford’s face was white as marble, and his eyes turned quickly to his
mother, who, in her first shock, started so violently as to throw down
from the stand a costly vase, which was broken in many pieces. This
occasioned a little diversion, and by the time the flowers and fragments
were gathered up, Wilford’s lips were not quite so livid, but he dared
not trust his voice yet, and listened while his sisters gave their
opinion of the name, Bell deciding for it at once, and Juno hesitating
until she had heard from a higher power than Katy.

“What put that fanciful name into your head?” Mrs. Cameron asked.

Katy explained, and with the removal of the fear, which for a few
moments had chilled his blood, Wilford grew calm again; while into his
heart there crept the thought that by giving that name to his child,
some slight atonement might be made to her above whose head the English
daisies had blossomed and faded many a year. But not so with his
mother;—the child should not be called Genevra if she could prevent it;
and she opposed it with all her powers, offering at last, as a great
concession on her part, to let it bear the name of either of Katy’s
family—Hannah and Betsy excepted, of course Lucy Lennox, Helen Lennox,
Katy Lennox, anything but Genevra. As usual, Wilford, when he learned
her mind, joined with her, notwithstanding his secret preference, and
the discussion became quite warm, especially as Katy evinced a
willfulness for which Helen had never given her credit. Hitherto she had
been as yielding as wax, but on this point she was firm, gathering
strength from the fact that Wilford did not oppose her as he usually
did. She could not, perhaps, have resisted him, but his manner was not
very decided, and so she quietly persisted, “Genevra or nothing,” until
the others gave up the contest, hoping she would feel differently after
a few days’ reflection. But Katy knew she shouldn’t, and Helen could not
overcome the exultation with which she saw her little sister put the
Camerons to rout and remain master of the field.

“After all it does not matter,” Mrs. Cameron said to her daughters,
when, after Mrs. Wilford was gone, she sat talking of Katy’s queer fancy
and her obstinacy in adhering to it. “It does not matter, and on the
whole I had as soon the christening would be postponed until the child
is more presentable than now. It will be prettier by and by, and the
dress will become it better. We can afford to wait.”

This heartless view of the case was readily adopted by Juno, while Bell
professed to be terribly shocked at hearing them talk thus of a baptism,
as if it were a mere show and nothing more, wondering if the Saviour
thought of dress or personal appearance when the Hebrew mothers brought
their children to him. But little did Mrs. Cameron or Juno care for the
baptism except as a display, and as both would be much prouder of a
fine-looking child, they were well content to wait until such time as
Katy should incline more favorably to their Margaret or Rose Marie. To
Helen is seemed highly probable that after a private interview with
Wilford Katy would change her mind, and she felt a wickedly agreeable
degree of disappointment when, on the day following the dinner party,
she found her sister even more resolved than ever upon having her own
way. Like the Camerons, she did not feel the necessity of haste,—time
enough by and by, when she would not have so much opposition to
encounter, she said; and as Wilford did not care, it was finally
arranged that they would wait awhile ere they gave a cognomen to the
little nameless child, only known as Baby Cameron.




                             CHAPTER XXIV.
                       TROUBLE IN THE HOUSEHOLD.


As soon as it was understood that Mrs. Wilford Cameron was able to go
out, there were scores of pressing invitations from the gay world which
had missed her so much, but Katy declined them all on the plea that baby
needed her care. She was happier at home, and as a mother it was her
place to stay there. At first Wilford listened quietly, but when he
found it was her fixed determination to abjure society entirely, he
interfered in his cool, decisive way, which always carried its point.

“It was foolish to take that stand,” he said. “Other mothers went and
why should not she? She had already stayed in too much. She was injuring
herself, and”—what was infinitely worse to Wilford—“she was losing her
good looks.”

As proof of this he led her to the glass, showing her the pale, thin
face and unnaturally large eyes, so distasteful to him. Wilford Cameron
was very proud of his handsome house,—proud to know that everything
there was in keeping with his position and wealth, but when Katy was
immured in the nursery, the bright picture was obscured, for it needed
her presence to make it perfect, and he began to grow dissatisfied with
his surroundings, while abroad he missed her quite as much, finding the
opera, the party or the reception, insipid where she was not, and
feeling fully conscious that Wilford Cameron, without a wife, and that
wife Katy, was not a man of half the consequence he had thought himself
to be. Even Sybil Grandon did not think it worth her while to court his
attention, if Katy were not present, for unless some one saw and felt
her triumph it ceased directly to be one. On the whole Wilford was not
well pleased with society as he found it this winter, and knowing where
the trouble lay, he resolved that Katy should no longer remain at home,
growing pale and faded and losing her good looks. Wilford would not have
confessed it, and perhaps was not himself aware of the fact, that Katy’s
beauty was quite as dear to him as Katy herself. If she lost it her
value was decreased accordingly, and so, as a prudent husband, it
behooved him to see that what was so very precious was not unnecessarily
thrown away. It did not take long for Katy to understand that her days
of quiet were at an end,—that neither crib nor cradle could avail her
longer. Mrs. Kirby, selected from a host of applicants, was wholly
competent for Baby Cameron, and Katy must throw aside the mother, which
sat so prettily upon her, and become again the belle. It was a sad
trial, but Katy knew that submission was the only alternative, and so
when Mrs. Banker’s invitation came, she accepted it at once, but there
was a sad look upon her face as she kissed her baby for the twentieth
time ere going to her dressing maid.

Never until this night had Helen realized how beautiful Katy was when in
full evening dress, and her exclamations of delight brought a soft flush
to Katy’s cheek, while she felt a thrill of the olden vanity as she saw
herself once more arrayed in all her costly apparel. Helen did not
wonder at Wilford’s desire to have Katy with him, and very proudly she
watched her young sister as Esther twined the flowers in her hair and
then brought out the ermine cloak she was to wear as a protection
against the cold.

Wilford was standing by her, making a few suggestions, and expressing
his approbation in a way which reminded Helen of that night before the
marriage, when Katy’s dress had been condemned, and of that sadder,
bitterer time, when she had poured her tears like rain into that trunk
returned. All she had thought of Wilford then was now more than
confirmed, but he was kind to her and very proud of Katy, so she forced
back her feelings of disquiet, which, however, were roused again when
she saw the dark look on his face, as Katy, at the very last, ran to the
nursery to kiss baby good-bye, succeeding this time in waking it, as was
proven by the cry which made Wilford scowl angrily and brought to his
lips a word of rebuke for Katy’s childishness.

The party was not so large as that at Sybil Grandon’s, but it was more
select, and Helen enjoyed it better, meeting people who readily
appreciated the peculiarities of her mind, and who would have made her
forget all else around her if she had not been a guest at Mark Ray’s
house. It was the first time she had met him away from home since the
night at Mrs. Grandon’s, and as if forgetful of her reserve, he paid her
numberless attentions, which, coming from the master of the house, were
the more to be valued.

With a quiet dignity Helen received them all, the thought once creeping
into her heart that _she_ was preferred, notwithstanding that
engagement. But she soon repudiated this idea as unworthy of her. She
could not be wholly happy with one who, to win her hand, had trampled
upon the affections of another, even if that other were Juno Cameron.

And so she kept out of his way as much as possible, watching her sister
admiringly as she moved about with an easy, assured grace, or floated
like a snowflake through the dance in which Wilford persuaded her to
join, looking after her with a proud, all-absorbing feeling, which left
no room for Sybil Grandon’s coquettish advances.

As if the reappearance of Katy had awakened all that was weak and silly
in Sybil’s nature, she again put forth her powers of attraction, but met
only with defeat. Katy, and even Helen, was preferred before her,—both
belles of a different type; but both winning golden laurels from those
who hardly knew which to admire more—Katy, with her pure, delicate
beauty and charming simplicity, or Helen, with her attractive face, and
sober, quiet manner. But Katy grew tired early. She could not endure
what she once did; and when she came to Wilford with a weary look upon
her face, and asked him to go home, he did not refuse, though Mark, who
was near, protested against their leaving so soon.

“Surely Miss Lennox might remain; the carriage could be sent back for
her; and he had hardly seen her at all.” But Miss Lennox chose to go;
and after her white cloak and hood had passed through the door into the
street, there was nothing attractive for Mark in his crowded parlors,
and he was glad when the last guest had departed, and he was left alone
with his mother.

Operas, parties, receptions, dinners, matinees, morning calls, drives,
visits, and shopping; how fast one crowded upon the other, leaving
scarcely an hour of leisure to the devotee of fashion who attended to
them all. How astonished Helen was to find what _high life_ in New York
implied, and she ceased to wonder that so many of the young girls grew
haggard and old before their time, or that the dowagers grew selfish and
hard and scheming. She should die outright, she thought, and she pitied
poor little Katy, who, having once returned to the world, seemed
destined to remain there, in spite of her entreaties and the excuses she
made for declining the invitations which poured in so fast.

“Baby was not well—Baby needed her,” was the plea with which she met
Wilford’s arguments, until the mention of his child was sure to bring a
scowl upon his face, and it became a question in Helen’s mind, whether
he would not be happier if Baby had never come between him and his
ambition.

To hear Katy’s charms extolled, and know that he was envied the
possession of so rare a gem, feeling all the while sure of her faith,
was Wilford’s great delight, and it is not strange that, without any
very strong fatherly feeling or principle of right in that respect, he
should be irritated by the little life so constantly interfering with
his pleasure and so surely undermining Katy’s health. For Katy did not
improve, as Wilford hoped she might; and with his two hands he could
span her slender waist, while the beautiful neck and shoulders were no
longer worn uncovered, for Katy would not display her _bones_, whatever
the fashion might be. In this dilemma Wilford sought his mother, and the
result of that consultation brought a more satisfied look to his face
than it had worn for many a day.

“Strange he had never thought of it, when it was what so many people
did,” he said to himself, as he hurried home. “It was the very best
thing both for Katy and the child, and would obviate every difficulty.”

Next morning, as she sometimes did when more than usually fatigued, Katy
breakfasted in bed; while Wilford’s face, as he sat opposite Helen at
the table, had on it a look of quiet determination, such as she had
rarely seen there before. In a measure, accustomed to his moods, she
felt that something was wrong, and never dreaming that he intended
honoring her with his confidence, she was wishing he would finish his
coffee and leave, when, motioning the servant from the room, he said
abruptly, and in a tone which roused Helen’s antagonistic powers at
once, it was so cool, so decided, “I believe you have more influence
over your sister than I have; at least, she has latterly shown a
willfulness in disregarding me and a willingness to listen to you, which
confirms me in this conclusion——”

“Well,” and Helen twisted her napkin ring nervously, waiting for him to
say more; but her manner disconcerted him, making him a little uncertain
as to what might be hidden behind that rigid face, and a little doubtful
as to the expression it would put on when he had said all he meant to
say.

He did not expect it to wear a look as frightened and hopeless as Katy’s
did when he last saw it upon the pillow, for he knew how different the
two sisters were, and much as he had affected to despise Helen Lennox,
he was afraid of her now. It had never occurred to him before that he
was somewhat uncomfortable in her presence—that her searching brown eyes
often held him in check; but it came to him now, that his wife’s sister
had a _will_ almost as firm as his own, and she was sure to take Katy’s
part. He saw it in her face, even though she had no idea of what he
meant to say.

He must explain sometime, and so at last he continued. “You must have
seen how opposed Katy is to complying with my wishes, setting them at
naught, when she knows how much pleasure she would give me by yielding
as she used to do.”

“I don’t know what you mean,” Helen replied, “unless it is her aversion
to going out, as that, I think, is the only point where her obedience
has not been absolute.”

Wilford did not like the words _obedience_ and _absolute_; that is, he
did not like the _sound_. Their definition suited him, but Helen’s
enunciation was at fault, and he answered quickly, “I do not require
absolute obedience from Katy. I never did; but in this matter to which
you refer, I think she might consult my wishes as well as her own. There
is no reason for her secluding herself in the nursery as she does. Do
you think there is?”

He put the question direct, and Helen answered it.

“I do not believe Katy means to displease you, but she has conceived a
strong aversion for festive scenes, and besides, baby is not healthy,
you know, and like all young mothers, she may be over-anxious, while I
fancy she has not the fullest confidence in the nurse, and this may
account for her unwillingness to leave the child with her.”

“Kirby was all that was desirable,” Wilford replied. “His mother had
taken her from a genteel, respectable house in Bond street, and he paid
her an enormous price, consequently she must be right;” and then came
the story that his mother had decided that neither Katy nor baby would
improve so long as they remained together; that for both a separation
was desirable; that she had recommended sending the child into the
country, where it would be better cared for than it could be at home,
with Katy constantly undoing all Mrs. Kirby had done, waking it from
sleep whenever the fancy took her, and in short, treating it much as she
probably did her doll when she was a little girl. With the child away,
there would be nothing to prevent Katy’s going out again and getting
back her good looks, which were somewhat impaired.

“Why, she looks older than you do,” Wilford said, thinking thus to
conciliate Helen, who quietly replied,

“There is not two years difference between us, and I have always been
well, and kept regular hours until I came here.”

Wilford’s compliment had failed, and more annoyed than before, he asked,
not what Helen thought of the arrangement, but if she would influence
Katy to act and think rationally upon it; “at least, you will not make
it worse,” he said, and this time there was something deferential and
pleading in his manner.

Helen knew the matter was fixed,—that neither Katy’s tears nor
entreaties would avail to revoke the decision, and so, though her whole
soul rose in indignation against a man who would deliberately send his
nursing baby from his roof because it was in his way, and was robbing
his bride’s cheek of its girlish bloom, she answered composedly,

“I will do what I can, but I must confess it seems to me an unnatural
thing. I had supposed parents less selfish than that.”

Wilford did not care what Helen had supposed, and her opposition only
made him more resolved. Still he did not say so, and he tried to smile
as he quitted the table and remarked to her,

“I hope to find Katy reconciled when I come home. I think I had better
not go up to her again, so tell her I send a good-bye kiss by you. I
leave her case in your hands.”

It was a far more difficult case than either he or Helen imagined, and
the latter started back in alarm from the white face which greeted her
view as she entered Katy’s room, and then with a moan hid itself in the
pillow.

“Wilford thought he would not come up, but he sent a kiss by me,” Helen
said, softly touching the bright, disordered hair, all she could see of
her sister.

“It does not matter,” Katy gasped. “Kisses cannot help me if they take
baby away. Did he tell you?” and she turned now partly towards Helen,
who nodded affirmatively, while Katy continued, “Had he taken a knife
and cut a cruel gash it would not have hurt me half so badly. I could
bear that, but my baby—oh, Helen, do you think they will take her away?”

She was looking straight at Helen, who shivered as she met an expression
so unlike Katy, and so like to that a hunted deer might wear if its
offspring were in danger.

“Say, do you think they will?” she continued, shedding back with her
thin hand the mass of tangled curls which had fallen about her eyes.

“Whom do you mean by _they_?” Helen asked, coming near to her, and
sitting down upon the bed.

There was a resentful gleam in the blue eyes usually so gentle, as Katy
answered,

“_Whom_ do I mean? _His folks_, of course! They have been the
instigators of every sorrow I have known since I left Silverton. Oh,
Helen! never, never marry anybody who has _folks_, if you wish to be
happy.”

Helen could not repress a smile, though she pitied her sister, who
continued,

“I don’t mean father Cameron, nor Bell, for I believe they love me.
Father does, I know, and Bell has helped me so often; but Mrs. Cameron
and Juno, oh, Helen, you will never know what _they_ have been to me.”

Since Helen came to New York there had been so much else to talk about
that Katy had said comparatively little of the Camerons. Now, however
there was no holding back on Katy’s part, and beginning with the first
night of her arrival in New York, she told what is already known to the
reader, exonerating Wilford in word, but dealing out full justice to his
mother and Juno, the former of whom controlled him so completely.

“I tried so hard to love her,” Katy said, “and if she had given me ever
so little in return I would have been satisfied; but she never did—that
is, when I hungered for it most, missing you at home, and the loving
care which sheltered me in childhood. After the world took me into favor
she began to caress me, but I was wicked enough to think it all came of
selfishness. I know I am hard and bad, for when I was sick, Mrs. Cameron
was really very kind, and I began to like her; but if she takes baby
away I shall surely die.”

“Where is baby to be sent?” Helen asked, and Katy answered,

“Up the river, to a house which Father Cameron owns, and which is kept
by a farmer’s family. I can’t trust Kirby. I do not like her. She keeps
baby asleep too long, and acts so cross if I try to wake her, or hint
that she looks unnatural. I cannot give baby to her care, with no one to
look after her, though Wilford says I must.”

Katy had never offered so violent opposition to any plan as she did now
to that of sending her child away.

“I can’t, I can’t,” she repeated constantly, and Mrs. Cameron’s call,
made that afternoon, with a view to reconcile the matter, only made it
worse, so that Wilford, on his return at night, felt a pang of
self-reproach as he saw the drooping figure holding his child upon its
lap and singing its lullaby in a plaintive voice, which told how sore
was its heart.

Wilford did not mean to be either a savage or a brute. On the contrary,
he had made himself believe that he was acting only for the good of both
mother and child; but the sight of Katy touched him, and he might have
given up the contest had not Helen, unfortunately, taken up the cudgels
in Katy’s defence, neglecting to conceal the weapons, and so defeating
her purpose. It was at the dinner, from which Katy was absent, that she
ventured to speak, not _asking_ that the plan be given up, but speaking
of it as an unnatural one, which seemed to her not only useless, but
cruel.

Wilford did not tell her that her opinion was not desired, but his
manner implied as much, and Helen felt the angry blood prickling through
her veins, as she listened to his reply, that it was neither unnatural
nor cruel; that many people did it, and his would not be an isolated
case.

“Then, if it must be,” Helen said, “pray let it go to Silverton, and I
will be its nurse. Katy will not object to that.”

In a very ironical tone Wilford thanked her for her offer, which he
begged leave to decline, intimating a preference for settling his own
matters according to his own ideas. Helen knew that further argument was
useless, and wished herself at home, where there were no _wills_ like
this, which, ignoring Katy’s tears and Katy’s pleading face, would not
retract one iota, or even stoop to reason with the suffering mother,
except to reiterate, “It is only for your good, and every one with
common sense will say so.”

Next morning Helen was surprised at Katy’s proposition to drive round to
Fourth street, and call on Marian.

“I have a strong presentiment that she can do me good,” Katy said.

“Shall you tell _her_?” Helen asked, in some surprise; and Katy replied,
“Perhaps I may, I’ll see.”

An hour later, and Katy, up in Marian’s room, sat listening intently,
while Marian spoke of a letter received a few days since from an old
friend who had worked with her at Madam ——‘s, and to whom she had been
strongly attached, keeping up a correspondence with her after her
marriage and removal to New London, in Connecticut, and whose little
child had borne Marian’s name. That child, born two months before
Katy’s, _was dead_, and the mother, finding her home so desolate, had
written, beseeching Marian to come to her for the remainder of the
winter.

There was an eager look in Katy’s face, and her eyes danced with the new
idea which had suddenly taken possession of her. She could _not_ trust
baby with Kirby up the river, but she could trust her in New London with
Mrs. Hubbell, if Marian was there, and grasping the latter’s arm, she
exclaimed, “Is Mrs. Hubbell poor? Would she do something for money, a
great deal of money, I mean?”

In a few moments Marian had heard Katy’s trouble, and Katy’s wish that
Mrs. Hubbell should take her child in place of the little one dead.
“Perhaps she would not harbor the thought for a moment, but she misses
her own so much, it made me think she might take mine. Write to her,
Marian,—write to-day,—now, before I go,” Katy continued, clasping
Marian’s hand, with an expression which, more than aught else, won
Marian Hazelton’s consent to a plan which seemed so strange.

“Yes, I will write,” she answered; “I will tell Amelia what you desire.”

“But, Marian, you too must go, if baby does—I’ll trust baby with you.
Say, Marian, will you go with my darling?”

It was hard to refuse, with those great, wistful, pleading eyes, looking
so earnestly into hers; but Marian must have time to consider. She had
thought of going to New London to open a shop, and if she did, she
should board with Mrs. Hubbell, and so be with the child. She would
decide when the answer came to the letter.

This was all the encouragement she would give; but it was enough to
change the whole nature of Katy’s feelings, and her face looked bright
and cheerful as she tripped down the stairway, talking to Helen of what
seemed to both like a direct interposition of Providence, and what she
was sure would please Wilford quite as well as the farm-house up the
river.

“Surely he will yield to me in this,” she said. Nor was she wrong; for,
glad of an opportunity to make some concessions, and still in the main
have his own way, Wilford raised no objection to the plan as
communicated to him by Katy, when, at an earlier hour than usual he came
home to dinner, and with the harmony of his household once more
restored, felt himself a model husband, as he listened to Katy’s plan of
sending baby to New London. On the whole, it might be better even than
the farm-house up the river, he thought, for it was further away, and
Katy could not be tiring herself with driving out every few days, and
keeping herself constantly uneasy and excited. The distance between New
York and New London was the best feature of the whole; and he wondered
Katy had not thought of it as an objection. But she had not, and but for
the pain when she remembered the coming separation, she would have been
very happy that evening, listening with Wilford and Helen to a new opera
brought out for the first time in New York.

Very differently from this was Marian’s evening passed, and on her face
there was a look such as Katy’s had never worn, as she asked for
guidance to choose the right, to lay all self aside, and if it were her
duty, to care for the child she had never seen, but whose birth had
stirred the pulsations of her heart and made the old wound bleed and
throb with bitter anguish. And as she prayed there crept into her face a
look which told that self was sacrificed at last, and Katy Cameron was
safe with her.

                  *       *       *       *       *

Mrs. Hubbell was willing—aye, more than that—was glad to take the child,
and the generous remuneration offered would make them so comfortable in
their little cottage, she wrote to Marian, who hastened to confer by
note with Katy, adding in a postscript, “Is it still your wish that I
should go? If so, I am at your disposal.”

It _was_ Katy’s wish, and she replied at once, going next to the nursery
to talk with Mrs. Kirby. Dark were the frowns and dire the displeasure
of that lady when told that, instead of going up the river, as she had
hoped, she was free to return to the “genteel and highly respectable
home on Bond street,” where Mrs. Cameron had found her.

“Wait till the _Madam_ comes, and then we’ll see,” she thought,
referring to Mrs. Cameron, and feeling delighted when, that very day,
she heard that lady’s voice in the parlor.

But Mrs. Cameron, though a little anxious with regard to both Mrs.
Hubbell’s and Marian’s antecedents, saw that Wilford was in favor of New
London, and so voted accordingly, only asking that she might write to
New London with regard to Mrs. Hubbell and her fitness to take charge of
a child in whose veins Cameron blood was flowing. To this Katy assented,
and as the answer returned to Mrs. Cameron’s letter was altogether
favorable, it was decided that Mrs. Hubbell should come to the city at
once for her little charge.

In a week’s time she arrived, seeming everything Katy could ask for, and
as Mrs. Cameron, too, approved her heartily as a modest, well-spoken
young woman, who knew her place, it was arranged that she should return
home with her little charge on Saturday, thus giving Katy the benefit of
Sunday in which “to get over it and recover her usual spirits,” Mrs.
Cameron said. The fact that Marian was going to New London within a week
after baby went, reconciled Katy to the plan, making her even cheerful
during the last day of baby’s stay at home. But as the daylight waned
and the night came on, a shadow began to steal across her face, and her
step was slower as she went up the stairs to the nursery, while only
herself that night could disrobe the little creature and hush it into
sleep.

“’Tis the last time, you know,” she said to Kirby, who went out, leaving
the young mother and child alone.

Mournfully sad and sweet was the lullaby Katy sang, and Helen, who, in
the hall, was listening to the low, sad moaning,—half prayer, half
benediction,—likened it to a farewell between the living and dead. Half
an hour later, when she glanced into the room, lighted only by the
moonbeams, baby was sleeping in her crib, whilst Katy knelt beside, her
face buried in her hands, and her form quivering with the sobs she tried
to smother as she softly prayed that her darling might come back again;
that God would keep the little child and forgive the erring mother, who
had sinned so deeply since the time she used to pray in her home among
the hills of Massachusetts. She was very white next morning, and to
Helen she seemed to be expanding into something more womanly, more
mature, as she disciplined herself to bear the pain welling up so
constantly from her heart, and at last overflowing in a flood of tears,
when Mrs. Hubbell was announced as in the parlor below, waiting for her
charge.

It was Katy who made her baby ready, trusting her to no one else, and
repelling with a kind of fierce decision all offers of assistance made
either by Helen, Mrs. Cameron, Bell, or the nurse, who were present,
while Katy’s hands drew on the little bright, soft socks of wool, tied
the hood of satin and lace, and fastened the scarlet cloak, her tears
falling fast as she met the loving, knowing look the baby was just
learning to give her, half smiling, half cooing, as she bent her face
down to it.

“Please all of you go out,” she said, when baby was ready—“Wilford and
all. I would rather be alone.”

They granted her request, but Wilford stood beside the open door,
listening while the mother bade farewell to her baby.

“Darling,” she murmured, “what will poor Katy do when you are gone, or
what will comfort her as you have done? Precious baby, my heart is
breaking to give you up; but will the Father in Heaven, who knows how
much you are to me, keep you from harm and bring you back again? I’d
give the world to keep you, but I cannot do it, for Wilford says that
you must go, and Wilford is your father.”

At that moment Wilford Cameron would have given half his fortune to have
kept his child for Katy’s sake, but it was now too late; the carriage
was at the door, and Mrs. Hubbell was waiting in the hall for the little
procession filing down the stairs. Mrs. Cameron and Bell, Wilford and
Katy, who carried the baby herself, her face bent over it and her tears
still dropping like rain. But it was Wilford who took the baby to the
carriage, going with it to the train and seeing Mrs. Hubbell off; then,
on his way back, he drove round to his own house, which even to him
seemed lonely, with all the paraphernalia of babyhood removed. Still,
now that the worst was over, he rather enjoyed it, for Katy was free
from care; there was nothing to hinder her gratifying his every wish,
and with his spirits greatly enlivened as he reflected how satisfactory
everything had been managed at the last, he proposed taking both Helen
and Katy to the theatre that night. But Katy answered, “No, Wilford, not
to-night; it seems too much like baby’s funeral. I’ll go next week, but
not to-night.”

So Katy had her way, and among the worshipers who next day knelt in
Grace Church, with words of prayer upon their lips, there was not one
more in earnest than she, whose only theme was, “My child, my darling
child.”

She did not get over it by Monday, as Mrs. Cameron had predicted. She
did not get over it at all, though she went without a word where Wilford
willed that she should go, and was ere long a belle again, but nothing
had power to draw one look from her blue eyes, the look which many
observed, and which Helen knew sprang from the mother-love, hungering
for its child. Only once before had Helen seen a look like this, and
that had come to Morris’s face on the sad night when she said to him,
“It might have been.” It had been there ever since, and Helen felt that
by the pangs with which that look was born he was a better man, just as
Katy was growing better for that hunger in her heart. God was taking His
own way to purify them both, and Helen watched intently, wondering what
the end would be.




                              CHAPTER XXV.
                     AUNT BETSY GOES ON A JOURNEY.


Just through the woods, where Uncle Ephraim was wont to exercise old
Whitey, was a narrow strip of land, extending from the highway to the
pond, and fertile in nothing except the huckleberry bushes, and the
rocky ledges over which a few sheep roamed, seeking for the short grass
and stunted herbs, which gave them a meagre sustenance. As a whole, it
was comparatively valueless, but to Aunt Betsy Barlow it was of great
importance, as it was—_her property_—the land on which she paid taxes
willingly—the real estate, the deed of which was lying undisturbed in
her hair trunk, where it had lain for years. Several dispositions the
good old lady had mentally made of this property, sometimes dividing it
equally between Helen and Katy, sometimes willing it all to the former,
and again, when she thought of Mark Ray, leaving the _interest_ of it to
some missionary society in which she was interested.

How, then, was the poor woman amazed and confounded when suddenly there
appeared a claimant to her property; not the whole, but a part, and that
part taking in the big sweet apple-tree and the very best of the berry
bushes, leaving her nothing but rocks and bogs, a pucker cherry-tree, a
patch of tansy, and one small tree, whose gnarly apples were not fit,
she said, to feed the pigs.

Of course she was indignant, and all the more so because the claimant
was prepared to prove that the line fence was not where it should be,
but ran into his own dominions for the width of two or three rods, a
fact he had just discovered by looking over a bundle of deeds, in which
the boundaries of his own farm were clearly defined.

In her distress, Aunt Betsy’s first thoughts were turned to _Wilford_ as
the man who could redress her wrongs, if any one, and a long letter was
written to him, in which her grievances were told in detail and his
advice solicited. Commencing with “My dear Wilford,” closing with “Your
respected ant,” sealed with a wafer, stamped with her thimble, and
directed bottom side up, it nevertheless found its way to No. ——
Broadway, and into Wilford’s hands. But with a frown and pish of
contempt he tossed it into the grate, and vain were all Aunt Betsy’s
inquiries as to whether there was any letter for her when Uncle Ephraim
came home from the office. Letters there were from Helen, and sometimes
one from Katy, but none from Wilford, and her days were passed in great
perplexity and distress, until another idea took possession of her mind.
She would go to New York herself! She had never traveled over half a
dozen miles in the cars, it was true, but it was time she had, and now
that she had a new bonnet and shawl, she could go to _York_ as well as
not!

Wholly useless were the expostulations of the family, for she would not
listen to them, nor believe that she would not be welcome at that house
on Madison Square, to which Mrs. Lennox had never been invited since
Katy was fairly settled in it. Much at first had been said of her
coming, and of the room she was to occupy; but all that had ceased, and
in the mother’s heart there had been a painful doubt as to the reason of
the silence, until Helen’s letters enlightened her, telling her it was
Wilford who had built so high a wall between Katy and her friends.

Far better than she used, did Mrs. Lennox understand her son-in-law, and
she shrank in horror from suffering her aunt to go where she would be so
serious an annoyance, frankly telling her the reason for her objections,
and asking if she wished to mortify the girls

At this Aunt Betsy took umbrage at once.

“She’d like to know what there was about her to mortify anybody? Wasn’t
her black silk dress made long and full, and the old pongee fixed into a
Balmoral, and hadn’t she a bran new cap with purple ribbon, and couldn’t
she travel in her delaine, and didn’t she wear hoops always now, except
at cleanin’ house times? Didn’t she _nuss_ both the girls, especially
Cather_ine_, carrying her in her arms one whole night when she had the
canker-rash, and everybody thought she’d die? And when she swallered
that tin whistle, didn’t she spat her on the back and swing her in the
air till she came to and blew the whistle clear across the room? Tell
her that Cather_ine_ would be ashamed! She knew better!”

Then, as a doubt began to cross her own mind as to Wilford’s readiness
to entertain her at his house, she continued,

“At any rate, the _Tubbses_, who moved from Silverton last fall, and who
are living in such style on the Bowery, wouldn’t be ashamed, and I can
stop with them at first, till I see how the land lies. They have invited
me to come, both Miss Tubbs and ’Tilda, and they are nice folks, who
belong to the Orthodox Church. Tom is in town now, and if I see him I
shall talk with him about it, even if I never go.”

Most devoutly did Mrs. Lennox and Aunt Hannah hope that Tom would return
to New York without honoring the farm-house with a call; but,
unfortunately for them, he came that very afternoon, and instead of
throwing obstacles in Aunt Betsy’s way, urged her warmly to make the
proposed visit.

“Mother would be so glad to see an old neighbor,” the honest youth said,
“for she did not know many folks in the city. _’Till_ had made some
flashy acquaintances, of whom he did not think much, and they kept a few
boarders, but nobody had called, and mother was lonesome. He wished Miss
Barlow would come; she would have no difficulty in finding them,” and on
a bit of paper he marked out the route of the Fourth Avenue cars, which
passed their door, and which Aunt Betsy would take after arriving at the
New Haven depot. “If he knew when she was coming, he would meet her,” he
said, but Aunt Betsy could not tell; she was not quite certain whether
she should go at all, she was so violently opposed.

Still she did not give it up entirely, and when, a few days after Tom’s
return to New York, there came a pressing invitation from the daughter
Matilda, or Mattie, as she signed herself, the fever again ran high, and
this time with but little hope of its abating.

“We shall be delighted, both mother and me,” Mattie wrote. “I will show
you all the lions of the city, and when you get tired of us you can go
up to Mrs. Cameron’s. I know exactly where they live, and have seen her
at the opera in full dress, looking like a queen.”

Over the last part of this letter Aunt Betsy pondered for some time.
“That as good an Orthodox as Miss Tubbs should let her girl go to the
opera, passed her. She had wondered at Helen’s going, but then, she was
a ’Piscopal, and them ’Piscopals had queer notions about usin’ the world
and abusin’ it.” Still, as Helen did _not_ attend the theatre, and _did_
attend the opera, there must be a difference between the two places, and
into the old lady’s heart there slowly crept the thought that possibly
_she_ might try the opera, too, if Tilda Tubbs would go, and promise
never to tell the folks at Silverton.

This settled, Aunt Betsy began to devise the best means of getting off
with the least opposition. Both Morris and her brother would be absent
from town during the next week, and she finally resolved to take that
opportunity for starting on her visit to New York, wisely concluding to
keep her own counsel until she was quite ready. Accordingly, on the very
day Morris and the deacon left Silverton, she announced her intention so
quietly and decidedly that further opposition was useless, and Mrs.
Lennox did what she could to make her aunt presentable. And Aunt Betsy
did look very respectable, in her dark delaine, with her hat and shawl,
both Morris’s gift, and both in very good taste. As for the black silk
and the new cap, they were carefully folded away, one in a box and the
other in a satchel she carried on her arm, and in one compartment of
which were sundry papers of fennel, caraway, and catnip, intended for
Katy’s baby, and which could be sent to it from New York. There was also
a package of dried plums and peaches for Katy herself, and a few cakes
of yeast of her own make, better than any they had in the city! Thus
equipped, she one morning took her seat in the Boston and New York
train, which carried her swiftly on towards Springfield.

“If anybody can find their way in New York, it is Betsy,” Aunt Hannah
said to Mrs. Lennox, as the day wore on and their thoughts went after
the lone woman, who, with satchel, umbrella and cap-box, was
felicitating in the luxury of a whole seat, and the near neighborhood of
a very nice young man, who listened with well-bred interest while she
told of her troubles concerning the sheep-pasture, and how she was going
to New York to consult a first-rate lawyer.

Once she thought to tell who the lawyer was, and perhaps enhance her own
merits in the eyes of her auditor by announcing herself as aunt to Mrs.
Wilford Cameron, of whom she had no doubt he had heard—nay, more, whom
he possibly knew, inasmuch as his home was in New York, though he spent
much of his time at West Point, where he had been educated. But certain
disagreeable remembrances of Aunt Hannah’s parting injunction, “not to
tell everybody in the cars that she was Katy’s aunt,” kept her silent on
that point, and so Lieutenant Bob Reynolds failed to be enlightened with
regard to the relationship existing between the fastidious Wilford
Cameron of Madison Square, and the quaint old lady whose very first act
on entering the car had amused him vastly. At a glance he saw that she
was unused to traveling, and as the car was crowded, he had kindly
offered his seat near the door, taking the side one under the window,
and so close to her that she gave him her cap-box to hold while she
adjusted her other bundles. This done, and herself comfortably settled,
she was just remaking that she liked being close to the door, in case of
a fire, when the conductor appeared, extending his hand officially
towards her as the first one convenient. For an instant Aunt Betsy
scanned him closely, thinking she surely had never seen him before, but
as he seemed to claim acquaintance, she could not find it in her kind
heart to ignore him altogether, and so she grasped the offered hand,
which she tried to shake, saying apologetically,

“Pretty well, thank you, but you’ve got the better of me, as I don’t
justly recall your name.”

Instantly the eyes of the young man under the window met those of the
conductor with a look which changed the frown gathering in the face of
the latter into a comical smile, as he withdrew his hand and shouted,

“Ticket, madam, your ticket!”

“For the land’s sake, have I got to give that up so quick, when it’s at
the bottom of my satchel,” Aunt Betsy replied, somewhat crest-fallen at
her mistake, and fumbling in her pocket for the key, which was finally
produced, and one by one the paper parcels of fennel, caraway, and
catnip, dried plums, peaches and yeast cakes, were taken out, until at
the very bottom, as she had said, the ticket was found, the conductor
waiting patiently, and advising her, by way of avoiding future trouble,
to pin the card to her shawl, where it could be seen.

“A right nice man,” was Aunt Betsy’s mental comment, but for a long time
there was a red spot on her cheeks as she felt that she had made herself
ridiculous, and hoped the _girls_ would never hear of it.

The young man helped to reassure her, and in telling him her troubles
she forgot her chagrin, feeling very sorry that he was going on to
Albany, and so down the river to West Point. West Point was associated
in Aunt Betsy’s mind with that handful of noble men who within the walls
of Sumter were then the centre of so much interest, and at parting with
her companion she said to him.

“Young man, you are a soldier, I take it, from your havin’ been to
school at West Point. Maybe you’ll never have to use your learning, but
if you do, stick to the old flag. Don’t you go against that, and if an
old woman’s prayers for your safety can do any good, be sure you’ll have
mine.”

She raised her hand reverently, and Lieutenant Bob felt a kind of awe
steal over him as if he might one day need that benediction, the first
perhaps given in the cause then so terribly agitating all hearts both
North and South.

“I’ll remember what you say,” he answered, and then as a new idea was
presented he took out a card, and writing a few lines upon it, bade her
hand it to the conductor just as she was getting into the city.

Without her glasses Aunt Betsy could not read, and thinking it did not
matter now, she thrust the card into her pocket, and bidding her
companion good-by, took her seat in the other train. Lonely and a very
little homesick she began to feel; for her new neighbors were not as
willing to talk as Bob had been, and she finally relapsed into silence,
which resulted in a quiet sleep, from which she awoke just as they were
entering the long, dark tunnel, which she would have likened to
Purgatory, had she believed in such a place.

“I didn’t know we ran into cellars,” she said faintly; but nobody heeded
her, or cared for the anxious timid-looking woman, who grew more and
more anxious, until suddenly remembering the card, she drew it from her
pocket, and the next time the conductor appeared handed it to him,
watching him while he read that “Lieut. Robert Reynolds would consider
it as a personal favor if he would see the bearer safely into the Fourth
Avenue cars.”

Surely there is a Providence which watches over all; and Lieutenant
Reynolds’s thoughtfulness was not a mere chance, but the answer to the
simple trust Aunt Betsy had that God would take her safely to New York.
The conductor knew Lieutenant Bob, and attended as faithfully to his
wishes as if it had been a born princess instead of Aunt Betsy Barlow
whom he led to a street car, ascertaining the number on the Bowery where
she wished to stop, and reporting to the conductor, who bowed in
acquiescence, after glancing at the woman, and knowing intuitively that
she was from the country. Could she have divested herself wholly of the
fear that the conductor would forget to put her off at the right place,
Aunt Betsy would have enjoyed that ride very much; and as it was, she
looked around with interest, thinking New York a mightily cluttered-up
place, and wondering if all the folks were in the streets; then, as a
lady in flaunting robes took a seat beside her, crowding her into a
narrow space, the good old dame thought to show that she did not resent
it, by an attempt at sociability, asking if she knew “Miss Peter Tubbs,
whose husband kept a store on the Bowery?”

“I have not that honor,” was the haughty reply, the lady drawing up her
costly shawl and moving a little away from her interlocutor, who
continued, “I thought like enough you might have seen ’Tilda, or Mattie
as she calls herself now. She is a right nice girl, and Tom is a very
forrard boy.”

To this there was no reply; and as the lady soon left the car, Aunt
Betsy did not make another attempt at conversation, except to ask once
how far they were from the Bowery, adding, as she received a civil
answer, “You don’t know Mr. Peter Tubbs?”

That worthy man was evidently a stranger to the occupants of that car,
which stopped at last upon a crossing, the conductor pointing back a few
doors to the right, and telling her that was her number.

“I should s’pose he might have driv right up, instead of leaving me
here,” she said, looking wistfully after the retreating car. “Coats, and
trowsers, and jackets! I wonder if there is nothing else to be seen
here,” she continued, as her eye caught the long line of clothing so
conspicuously displayed in that part of the Bowery. “’Taint no great
shakes,” was the feeling struggling into Aunt Betsy’s mind, as with
Tom’s outline map in hand she peered at the numbers of the doors,
finding the right one, and ringing the bell with a force which brought
Mattie at once to the rescue.

If Mattie was not glad to see her guest, she seemed to be, which
answered every purpose for the tired woman, who followed her into the
dark, narrow hall, and up the narrow stairs, through a still darker
hall, and into the front parlor, which looked out upon the Bowery.

Mrs. Tubbs was glad to see Aunt Betsy. She did not take kindly to city
life, and the sight of a familiar face, which brought the country with
it, was very welcome to her. Mattie, on the contrary, liked New York,
and there was scarcely a street where she had not been, with Tom for a
protector; while she was perfectly conversant with all the respectable
places of amusement—with their different prices and different grades of
patrons. She knew where Wilford Cameron’s office was, and also his
house, for she had walked by the latter many a time, admiring the
elegant curtains, and feasting her eyes upon the glimpses of inside
grandeur, which she occasionally obtained as some one came out or went
in. Once she had seen Helen and Katy enter their carriage, which the
colored coachman drove away, but she had never ventured to accost them.
Katy would not have known her if she had, for the family had come to
Silverton while she was at Canandaigua, and as, after her return to
Silverton, until her marriage, Mattie had been in one of the Lawrence
factories, they had never met. With Helen, however, she had a speaking
acquaintance; but she had never presumed upon it in New York, though to
some of her young friends she had told how she once sat in the same pew
with Mrs. Wilford Cameron’s sister when she went to the “Episcopal
meeting,” and the consideration which this fact procured for her from
those who had heard of Mrs. Wilford Cameron, of Madison Square, awoke in
her the ambition to know more of that lady, and, if possible, gain an
entrance to her dwelling. To this end she favored Aunt Betsy’s visit,
hoping thus to accomplish her object, for, of course, when Miss Barlow
went to Mrs. Cameron’s, she was the proper person to go with her and
point the way. This was the secret of Mattie’s letter to Aunt Betsy, and
the warmth with which she welcomed her to that tenement on the Bowery,
over a clothing store, and so small that it is not strange Aunt Betsy
wondered where they all slept, never dreaming of the many devices known
to city housekeepers, who can change a handsome parlor into a kitchen or
sleeping room, and _vice versa_, with little or no trouble. But she
found it out at last, lifting her hands in speechless amazement, when,
as the hour for retiring came, what she had imagined the parlor bookcase
was converted into a comfortable bed, on which her first night in New
York was passed in comfort if not in perfect quiet.

The next day had been set apart by Mattie for showing their guest the
city, and possibly calling on Mrs. Wilford; but the poor old lady,
unused to travel and excitement, was too tired to go out, and stayed at
home the entire day, watching the crowds of people in the street, and
occasionally wishing herself back in the clean, bright kitchen, where
the windows looked out upon woods and fields instead of that
never-ceasing rush which made her dizzy and faint. On the whole she was
as nearly homesick as she well could be, and so when Mattie asked if she
would like to go out that evening, she caught eagerly at the idea, as it
involved a change, and again the opera came before her mind, in spite of
her attempts to thrust it away.

“Did ’Tilda know if Katy went to the opera now? Did she s’pose she would
be there to-night? Was it far to the show? What was the price?—and was
it a very wicked place?”

To all these queries Mattie answered readily. She presumed Katy would be
there, as it was a new opera. It was not so very far. Distance in the
city was nothing, and it was not a wicked place; but over the price
Mattie faltered. Tickets for Aunt Betsy, herself and Tom, who of course
must go with them, would cost more than her father had to give. The
theatre was preferable, as that came within their means, and she
suggested Wallack’s, but from that Aunt Betsy recoiled as from
Pandemonium itself.

“Catch _her_ at a theatre—a deacon’s sister, looked up to for a sample,
and who run once for Vice-President of the Sewing Society in Silverton!
It was too terrible to think of.” But the opera seemed different. Helen
went there; it could not be very wrong, particularly as the tickets were
so high, and taking out her purse, Aunt Betsy counted its contents
carefully, holding the bills thoughtfully for a moment, while she seemed
to be balancing between what she knew was safe and what she feared might
be wrong, at least in the eyes of Silverton.

“But Silverton will never know it,” the tempter whispered, “and it is
worth something to see the girls in full dress.”

This last decided it, and Aunt Betsy generously offered “to pay the
fiddler, provided ’Tilda would never let it get to Silverton, that Betsy
Barlow was seen inside a play-house!” To Mrs. Tubbs it seemed impossible
that Aunt Betsy could be in earnest, but when she found she was, she put
no impediments in her way; and so, conspicuous among the crowd of
transient visitors who that night entered the Academy of Music was Aunt
Betsy Barlow, chaperoned by Miss Mattie Tubbs, and protected by Tom, a
shrewd, well-grown youth of seventeen, who passed for some years older,
and consequently was a sufficient escort for the ladies under his
charge. It was not his first visit there, and he managed to procure a
seat which commanded a good view of several private boxes, and among
them that of Wilford Cameron. This Mattie pointed out to the excited
woman gazing about her in a maze of bewilderment, and half doubting her
own identity with the Betsy Barlow who, six weeks before, if charged
with such a sin as she was now committing, would have exclaimed, “Is thy
servant a dog, to do this thing?” Yet here she was, a deacon’s sister, a
candidate for the Vice-Presidency of the Silverton Sewing Society, a
woman who, for sixty-three years and a half, had led a blameless life,
frowning upon all worldly amusements and setting herself for a burning
light to others—here she was in her black dress, her best shawl pinned
across her chest, and her bonnet tied in a square bow which reached
nearly to her ears. Here she was, in that huge building, where the
lights were so blinding, and the crowd so great that she shut her eyes
involuntarily, while she tried to realize what she could be doing.

“I’m in for it now, anyhow, and if it is wrong may the good Father
forgive me,” she said softly to herself, just as the orchestra struck
up, thrilling her with its ravishing strains, and making her forget all
else in her rapturous delight.

She was very fond of music, and listened eagerly, beating time with both
her feet, and making her bonnet go up and down until the play commenced
and she saw stage dress and stage effect for the first time in her life.
This part she did not like; “they mumbled their words so nobody could
understand more than if they spoke a heathenish tongue,” she thought,
and she was beginning to yawn when a nudge from Mattie and a whisper,
“There they come,” roused her from her stupor, and looking up she saw
both Helen and Katy entering their box, and with them Mark Ray and
Wilford Cameron.

Very rapidly Katy’s eyes swept the house, running over the sea of heads
below, but failing to see the figure which, half rising from its seat,
stood gazing upon her, the tears running like rain over the upturned
face, and the lips murmuring, “Darling Katy! blessed child! She’s
thinner than when I see her last, but oh! so beautiful and grand!
Precious lambkin! It isn’t wicked now for me to be coming here, where I
can see her face again.”

It was all in vain that Mattie pulled her dress, bidding her sit down as
people were staring at her. Aunt Betsy did not hear, and if she had she
would scarcely have cared for those who, following her eyes, saw the
beautiful young ladies, behind whom Wilford and Mark were standing, but
never dreamed of associating them with the “crazy thing” who sank back
at last into her seat, keeping her eyes still upon the box where Helen
and Katy sat, their heads uncovered, and their cloaks falling off just
enough to show the astonished woman that their necks were uncovered too,
while Helen’s arms, raised to adjust her glass, were discovered to be in
the same condition.

“Ain’t they splendid in full dress!” Mattie whispered, while Aunt Betsy
replied,

“Call that full dress? I’d sooner say it was no dress at all! They’ll
catch their death of cold. What would their mother say?”

Then, as the enormity of the act grew upon her, she continued more to
herself than to Mattie,

“I mistrusted Catherine, but that _Helen_ should come to this passes
me.”

Still, as she became more accustomed to it, and glanced at other
full-dressed ladies, the first shock passed away, and she could calmly
contemplate Katy’s dress, wondering what it cost, and then letting her
eyes pass on to Helen, to whom Mark Ray seemed so lover-like that Aunt
Betsy remembered her impressions when he stopped at Silverton, her heart
swelling with pride as she thought of both the girls making out so well.

“Who is that young man talking to Helen?” Mattie asked, between the
acts, and when told it “was Mr. Ray, Wilford’s partner,” she drew her
breath eagerly, and turned again to watch him, envying the young girl
who did not seem as much gratified with the attentions as Mattie fancied
she should be were she in Helen’s place.

How could she, with Juno Cameron just opposite, watching her jealously,
while Madam Cameron fanned herself indignantly, refusing to look upon
what she so greatly disapproved.

But Mark continued his attentions until Helen wished herself away, and
though a good deal surprised, was not sorry when Wilford abruptly
declared the opera a _bore_, and suggested going home.

They would order an ice, he said, and have a much pleasanter time in
their own private parlor.

“Please not go; I like the play to-night,” Katy said; but on Wilford’s
face there was that look which never consulted Katy’s wishes, and so the
two ladies tied on their cloaks, and just as the curtain rose in the
last act, left their box, while Aunt Betsy looked wistfully after them,
but did not suspect _she_ was the cause of their exit, and of Wilford’s
perturbation.

Running his eyes over the house below, they had fallen upon the trio,
Aunt Betsy, Mattie, and Tom, the first of whom was at that moment partly
standing, while she adjusted her heavy shawl, which the heat of the
building had compelled her to unfasten.

There was a start, a rush of blood to the head and face, and then he
reflected how impossible it was that _she_ should be _there_, in New
York, and at the opera, too.

The shawl arranged, Aunt Betsy took her seat and turned her face fully
toward him, while Wilford seized Katy’s glass and leveled it at her. He
was not mistaken. It was Aunt Betsy Barlow, and Wilford felt the
perspiration oozing out beneath his hair and about his lips, as he
remembered _the letter_ he had burned, wishing now that he had answered
it, and so, perhaps, have kept her from his door. For she _was_ coming
there, nay, possibly had come, since his departure from home, and
learning his whereabouts had followed on to the Academy of Music,
leaving her baggage where he should stumble over it on entering the
hall.

Such was the fearful picture conjured up by Wilford’s imagination, as he
stood watching poor Aunt Betsy, a dark cloud on his brow and fierce
anger at his heart, that she should thus presume to worry and annoy him.

“If she spies us she will be finding her way up here; there’s no piece
of effrontery of which that class is not capable,” he thought, wondering
next who the vulgar-looking girl and _gauche_ youth were who were with
her.

“Country cousins, of whom I have never heard, no doubt,” and he ground
his teeth together as with his next breath he suggested going home,
carrying out his suggestion and hurrying both Helen and Katy to the
carriage as if some horrible dragon had been on their track.

There was _no_ baggage in the hall; there had been no woman there, and
Wilford’s fears for a time subsided, but grew strong again about the
time he knew the opera was out, while the sound of wheels coming towards
his door was sufficient to make his heart stop beating, and every hair
prickle at its roots.

But Aunt Betsy did not come except in Wilford’s dreams, which she
haunted the entire night, so that the morning found him tired, moody and
cross. That day they entertained a select dinner party, and as this was
something in which Katy excelled, while Helen’s presence, instead of
detracting from, would add greatly to the éclat of the affair, Wilford
had anticipated it with no small degree of complacency. But now, alas,
there was a phantom at his side,—a skeleton of horror, wearing Aunt
Betsy’s guise; and if it had been possible he would have given the
dinner up. But it was too late for that; the guests were bidden, the
arrangements made, and there was nothing now for him but to abide the
consequences.

“She shall at least stay in her room, if I have to lock her in,” he
thought, as he went down to his office without kissing Katy or bidding
her good-by.

Business that day had no interest for him, and in a listless, absent way
he sat watching the passers-by and glancing at his door as if he
expected the first assault to be made there. Then, as the day wore on,
and he felt sure that what he so much dreaded had really come to pass,
that the baggage expected last night had certainly arrived by this time
and spread itself over his house, he could endure the suspense no
longer, and startled Mark with the announcement that he was going home,
and should not return again that day.

“Going home, when Leavit is to call at three!” Mark said, in much
surprise, and feeling that it would be a relief to unburden himself to
some one, the story came out that Wilford had seen Aunt Betsy at the
opera, and expected to find her at Madison Square.

“I wish I had answered her letter about that confounded sheep-pasture,”
he said, “for I would rather give a thousand dollars—yes, ten
thousand—than have her with us to-day. I did _not_ marry my wife’s
relations,” he continued, excitedly, adding, as Mark looked quickly up,
“Of course I don’t mean Helen. Neither do I mean that doctor, for he is
a gentleman. But this Barlow woman—oh! Mark, I am all of a dripping
sweat just to think of it.”

He did not say what he intended doing, but with Mark Ray’s ringing laugh
in his ears, passed into the street, and hailing a stage was driven
towards home, just as a down town stage deposited on the walk in front
of his office “that Barlow woman” and Mattie Tubbs!




                             CHAPTER XXVI.
                     AUNT BETSY CONSULTS A LAWYER.


Aunt Betsy did not rest well after her return from the opera. Novelty
and excitement always kept her awake, and her mind was not wholly at
ease with regard to what she had done. Not that she really felt she had
committed a sin, except so far as the example might be bad, but she
feared the result, should it ever reach the Orthodox church at
Silverton.

“There’s no telling what Deacon Bannister would do—send a _subpœna_
after me, for what I know,” she thought, as she laid her tired head upon
her pillow and went off into a weary state, half way between sleep and
wakefulness, in which operas, play-actors, Katy in full dress, Helen and
Mark Ray, choruses, music by the orchestra, to which she had been guilty
of beating her foot, Deacon Bannister, and the whole offended
brotherhood, with constable and subpœnas, were pretty equally blended
together.

But with the daylight her fears subsided, and at the breakfast table she
was hardly less enthusiastic over the opera than Mattie herself,
averring, however, that “once would do her, and she had no wish to go
again.”

The sight of Katy had awakened all the olden intense love she had felt
for her darling, and she could not wait much longer without seeing her.

“Hannah and Lucy, and amongst ’em, advised me not to come,” she said to
Mrs. Tubbs, “and they hinted that I might not be wanted up there; but
now I’m here I shall go, if I don’t stay more than an hour.”

“Of course I should,” Mattie answered, herself anxious to stand beneath
Wilford Cameron’s roof, and see Mrs. Wilford at home. “She don’t look as
proud as Helen, and you are her aunt, her blood kin; why shouldn’t you
go there if you like?”

“I shall—I am going,” Aunt Betsy replied, feeling that to take Mattie
with her was not quite the thing, and not exactly knowing how to manage,
for the girl must of course pilot the way. “I’ll risk it and trust to
Providence,” was her final decision, and so after an early lunch she
started out with Mattie as her escort, suggesting that they visit
Wilford’s office first, and get that affair off her mind.

At this point Aunt Betsy began to look upon herself as a most hardened
wretch, wondering at the depths of iniquity to which she had fallen. The
opera was the least of her offences, for was she not harboring pride and
contriving how to be rid of ’Tilda Tubbs, as clever a girl as ever
lived, hoping that if she found Wilford he would see her home, and so
save ’Tilda the trouble? Play-houses, pride, vanity, subterfuges and
deceit—it was a long catalogue she would have to confess to Deacon
Bannister, if confess she did, and with a groan the conscience-smitten
woman followed her conductor along the streets, and at last into the
stage which took them to Wilford’s office.

Broadway was literally jammed that day, and the aid of two policemen was
required to extricate the bewildered countrywoman from the mass of
vehicles and horses’ heads, which took all her sense away. Trembling
like a leaf when Mattie explained that the “two nice men” who had
dragged her to the walk were police officers, and thinking again of the
subpœna, the frightened woman who had escaped such peril, followed up
the two flights of stairs and into Wilford’s office, where she sank
breathless into a chair, while Mark, not in the least surprised, greeted
her cordially, and very soon succeeded in getting her quiet, bowing so
graciously to Mattie when introduced that the poor girl dreamed of him
for many a night, and by day built castles of what might have been had
she been rich, instead of only ’Tilda Tubbs, whose home was on the
Bowery. Why need Aunt Betsy in her introduction have mentioned that
fact? Mattie thought, her cheeks burning scarlet; or why need she
afterwards speak of her as _’Tilda_, who was kind enough to come with
her to the office where she hoped to find Wilford? Poor Mattie, she knew
some things very well, but she had never yet conceived of the
immeasurable distance between herself and Mark Ray, who cared but little
whether her home were on the Bowery or on Murray Hill, after the first
sight which told him what she was.

“Mr. Cameron has just left the office and will not return to-day,” he
said to Aunt Betsy, asking if _he_ could assist her in any way, and
assuring her of his willingness to do so.

Aunt Betsy could talk with him better than with Wilford, and was about
to give him the story of the sheep-pasture, in detail, when, motioning
to a side door, he said, “Walk in here, please. You will not be liable
to so many interruptions.”

“Come, ’Tilda, it’s no privacy,” Aunt Betsy said; but _’Tilda_ felt
intuitively that she was not wanted, and rather haughtily declined,
amusing herself by the window, while Aunt Betsy in the private office
told her troubles to Mark Ray; and received in return the advice to let
the claimant go to law if he chose; he probably would make nothing by
it; even if he did, she would not sustain a heavy loss, according to her
own statement of the value of the land.

“If I could keep the sweet apple-try, I wouldn’t care,” Aunt Betsy said,
“for the rest ain’t worth a law-suit; though it’s my property, and I
have thought of _willing_ it to Helen, if she ever marries.”

Here was a temptation which Mark Ray could not resist. Ever since Mrs.
General Reynolds’s party Helen’s manner had puzzled him; but her shyness
only made him more in love than ever, while the rumor of her engagement
with Dr. Morris tormented him continually. Sometimes he believed it, and
sometimes he did not, wishing always that he knew for certain. Here then
was a chance for confirming his fears or for putting them at rest, and
blessing ’Tilda Tubbs for declining to enter his back office, he said in
reply to Aunt Betsy’s “If she ever marries”—“And of course she will. She
is engaged, I believe?”

“Engaged! _Who to?_ When? Strange she never writ, nor Katy neither,”
Aunt Betsy exclaimed, while Mark, raised to an ecstatic state, replied,
“I refer to Dr. Grant. Haven’t they been engaged for a long time past?”

“Why—no—indeed,” was the response, and Mark could have hugged the good
old lady, who continued in a confidential tone, “I used to think they’d
make a good match; but I’ve gin that up, and I sometimes mistrust ’twas
Katy Morris wanted. Anyhow; he’s mighty changed since she was married,
and he never speaks her name. I never heard anybody say so, and maybe
it’s all a fancy, so you won’t mention it.”

“Certainly not,” Mark replied, drawing nearer to her, and continuing in
a low tone, “Isn’t it possible that after all Helen is engaged to her
cousin, and you do not know it?”

“No,” and Aunt Betsy grew very positive. “I am sure she ain’t, for only
t’other day I said to Morris that I wouldn’t wonder if Helen and
_another chap_ had a hankerin’ for one another; and he said he wished it
might be so, for _you_—no, that _other chap_, I mean—would make a
splendid husband,” and Aunt Betsy turned very red at the blunder, which
made Mark Ray feel as if he walked on air, with no obstacle whatever in
his way.

Still he could not be satisfied without probing her a little deeper, and
so he said, “And that _other chap_? Does he live in Silverton?”

Aunt Betsy’s look was a sufficient answer; for the old lady knew he was
quizzing her, just as she felt that in some way she had removed a
stumbling-block from his path. She had,—a very large stumbling-block,
and in the first flush of his joy and gratitude he could do most
anything. So when she spoke of going up to Katy’s he set himself
industriously at work to prevent it for that day at least. “They were to
have a large dinner party,” he said, “and both Mrs. Cameron and Miss
Lennox would be wholly occupied. Would it not be better to wait until
to-morrow? Did she contemplate a long stay in New York?”

“No, she might go back to-morrow,—certainly the day after,” Aunt Betsy
replied, her voice trembling at this fresh impediment thrown in the way
of her seeing Katy.

The quaver in her voice touched Mark’s sympathy. “She was old and
simple-hearted. She was Helen’s aunt,” and this, more than aught else,
helped him to a decision. “She must be homesick in the Bowery; he would
take her to his mother’s and keep her until the morrow, and perhaps
until she left for home; telling Helen, of course, and then suffering
her to act accordingly.”

This he proposed to his client; assuring her of his mother’s entire
willingness to receive her, and urging so many reasons why she should go
there, instead of “up to Katy’s,” where they were in such confusion,
that Aunt Betsy was at last persuaded, and was soon riding up town in a
Twenty-third Street stage, with Mark Ray her _vis-à-vis_, and Mattie at
her right. Why Mattie was there Mark could not conjecture; and perhaps
she did not know herself, unless it were that, disappointed in her call
on Mrs. Cameron, she vaguely hoped for some redress by calling on Mrs.
Banker. How then was she chagrined, when, as the stage left them at a
handsome brown-stone front, near Fifth Avenue Hotel, Mark said to her,
as if she were not of course expected to go in, “Please tell your mother
that Miss Barlow is stopping with Mrs. Banker to-day. Has she baggage at
your house? If so, we will send round for it at once. Your number,
please?”

His manner was so off hand and yet; so polite that Mattie could neither
resist him, nor be angry, though there was a pang of disappointment at
her heart as she gave the required number, and then shook Aunt Betsy’s
hand, whispering in a choked voice,

“You’ll come to us again before you go home?”

With a good-bye to Mark, whose bow atoned for a great deal, Mattie
walked slowly away, leaving Mark greatly relieved. Aunt Betsy was as
much as he cared to have on his hands at once, and as he led her up the
steps, he began to wonder more and more what his mother would say to his
bringing that stranger into her house, unbidden and unsought.

“I’ll tell her the truth,” was his rapid decision, and assuming a manner
which warned the servant who answered his ring neither to be curious nor
impertinent, he conducted his charge into the parlor, and bringing her a
chair before the grate, went in quest of his mother, who he found was
out.

“Kindle a fire then in the front guest-chamber,” he said, “and see that
it is made comfortable as soon as possible.”

The servant bowed in acquiescence, wondering _who_ had come, and feeling
not a little surprised at the description given by John of the woman he
had let into the house, and who now in the parlor was looking around her
in astonishment and delight, condemning herself for the feeling of
homesickness with which she remembered the Bowery, and contrasting her
“cluttered quarters” there with the elegance around her. “Was Katy’s
house as fine as this?” she asked herself, feeling intuitively that such
as she might be out of place in it, just as she began to fear she was
out of her place here, bemoaning the fact that she had forgotten her
_cap-box_, with its contents, and so could not remove her bonnet, as she
had nothing with which to cover her gray head.

“What shall I do?” she was asking herself, when Mark appeared,
explaining that his mother was absent, but would be at home in a short
time.

“Your room will soon be ready,” he continued, “and meantime you might
lay aside your wrappings here if you find them too warm.”

There was something about Mark Ray which inspired confidence, and in her
extremity Aunt Betsy gasped, “I can’t take off my bunnet till I get my
caps, down to Mr. Tubbses. Oh, what a trouble I be.”

Not exactly comprehending the nature of the difficulty, Mark suggested
that she go without a cap until he could send for them; but Aunt Betsy’s
assertion that “she was grayer than a rat,” enlightened him with regard
to her dilemma, and full permission was given for her “to sit in her
bonnet” until such time as a messenger could go to the Bowery and back.
In this condition she was better in her own room, and as it was in
readiness, Mark conducted her to it, the stern gravity of his face
putting down the laugh which sprang to the waiting-maid’s eyes at the
old lady’s ejaculations of surprise that anything could be so fine as
the house where she so unexpectedly found herself a guest.

“She is unaccustomed to the city, but a particular friend of mine; so
see that you treat her with respect,” was all the explanation he
vouchsafed to the curious girl.

But that was enough. A friend of Mr. Ray’s must be somebody, even if she
sat with two bonnets on instead of one, and appeared ten times more
rustic than Aunt Betsy, who breathed freer when she found herself alone
up stairs, and knew her baggage would soon be there.

In some little trepidation Mark paced up and down the parlor waiting for
his mother, who came ere long, expressing her surprise to find him
there, and asking if anything had happened that he seemed so agitated.

“Yes, I’m in a deuced scrape,” he answered, coming up to her with the
saucy, winning smile she could never resist, and continuing, “To begin
at the foundation, you know how much I am in love with Helen Lennox?”

“No, I don’t,” was the reply, as Mrs. Banker removed her fur with the
most provoking coolness. “How should I know when you have never told
me?”

“Haven’t you eyes? Can’t you see? Don’t you like her yourself?”

“Yes, very much.”

“And are you willing she should be your daughter?”

Mark had his arm around his mother’s neck, and bending his face to hers,
kissed her playfully as he asked her the last question.

“Say, mother, are you willing I should marry Helen Lennox?”

There was a struggle in Mrs. Banker’s heart, and for a moment she felt
jealous of the girl who she had guessed was dearer to her son than ever
his mother could be again; but she was a sensible woman. She knew that
it was natural for another and a stronger love to come between her and
her boy. She liked Helen Lennox. She was willing to take her as a
daughter, and she said so at last, and listened half amazed and half
amused to the story which had in it so much of Aunt Betsy Barlow, at
that very moment an occupant of their best guest-chamber, waiting for
her cap from the Bowery.

“Perhaps it was wrong to bring her home,” he added, “but I did it to
spare Helen. I knew what a savage Wilford would be if he found her
there. Say, mother, was I wrong?”

He was not often wrong in his mother’s estimation, and certainly he was
not now, when he kissed her so often, begging her to say he had done
right.

“Certainly he had. Mrs. Banker was very glad to find him so thoughtful;
few young men would do as much,” she said, and from feeling a little
doubtful, Mark came to look upon himself as a very nice young man, who
had done a most unselfish act, for of course he had not been influenced
by any desire to keep Aunt Betsy from the people who would be present at
the dinner, neither had Helen been at all mixed up in the affair.

It was all himself, and he began to whistle “Annie Laurie” very
complacently, thinking the while what a clever fellow he was, and
meditating other generous acts towards the old lady overhead, who was
standing by the window, and wondering what the huge building could be
gleaming so white in the fading sunlight.

“Looks as if it was made of stone cheena,” she thought, just as Mrs.
Banker appeared, her kind, friendly manner making Aunt Betsy feel wholly
at ease, as she answered the lady’s questions or volunteered remarks of
her own.

Mrs. Banker had lived in the country, and had seen just such women as
Aunt Betsy Barlow, understanding her intrinsic worth, and knowing how
Helen Lennox, though her niece, could still be refined and cultivated.
She could also understand how one educated as Wilford Cameron had been,
would shrink from coming in contact with her, and possibly be rude if
she thrust herself upon him. Mark did well to bring her here, she
thought, as she left the room to order the tea which the tired woman so
much needed. The satchel, umbrella, and cap-box, with a note from
Mattie, had by this time arrived, and in her Sunday cap, with the purple
bows, Aunt Betsy felt better, and enjoyed the tempting little supper,
served on silver and Sèvres china, the attendant waiting in the hall
instead of in her room, where her presence might embarrass one
unaccustomed to such usages. They were very kind, and had Mark been her
own son he could not have been more deferential than he appeared when
just before starting for the dinner he went up to see her, asking what
message he should take to Helen. Mrs. Banker, too, came in, her dress
eliciting many compliments from her guest, who ventured to ask the price
of the diamond pin which fastened the point lace collar. Five hundred
dollars seemed an enormous sum, but Aunt Betsy was learning not to say
all she thought, and merely remarked that Katy had some diamonds too,
which she presumed cost full much as that.

“She should do very well alone,” she said; “she could read her Bible,
and if she got too tired, go to bed,” and with a good-bye she sent them
away, after saying to Mrs. Banker, “Maybe you ain’t the kissin’ kind,
but if you be, I wish you would kiss Katy once for me.”

There was a merry twinkle in Mark’s eyes as he asked,

“And Helen too?”

“I meant your marm, not you,” Aunt Betsy answered; while Mrs. Banker
raised her hand to her mischievous son, who ran lightly down the stairs,
carrying a happier heart than he had known since Helen Lennox first came
to New York, and he met her at the depot.




                             CHAPTER XXVII.
                           THE DINNER PARTY.


It was a very select party which Wilford Cameron entertained that
evening; and as the carriages rolled to his door and deposited the
guests, the cloud which had been lifting ever since he came home and
found “no Barlow woman” there, disappeared, leaving him the blandest,
most urbane of hosts, pleased with everybody—himself, his guests, his
sister-in-law, and his wife, who had never looked better than she did
to-night, in pearls and light blue silk, which harmonized so perfectly
with her wax-like complexion. Aunt Betsy’s proximity was wholly
unsuspected, both by her and Helen, who was very handsome, in crimson
and black, with lilies in her hair. Nothing could please Mark better
than his seat at table, where he could look into her eyes, which dropped
so shyly whenever they met his gaze. Helen was beginning to doubt the
story of his engagement with Juno. Certainly she could not mistake the
nature of the attentions he paid to her, especially to-night, when he
hovered continually near her, totally ignoring Juno’s presence, and
conscious apparently of only one form, one face, and that the face and
form of Helen Lennox.

There was another, too, who felt the influence of Helen’s beauty, and
that was Lieutenant Bob, who, after dinner, attached himself to her
side, while around them gathered quite a group, all listening with peals
of laughter as Bob related his adventure of two days before, with “the
most rustic and charming old lady it was ever his fortune to meet.” Told
by Bob the story lost nothing of its freshness; for every particular,
except indeed the kindness he had shown her, was related, even to the
_sheep-pasture_, about which she was going to New York to consult a
lawyer.

“I thought once of referring her to you, Mr. Cameron,” Bob said; “but
couldn’t find it in my heart to quiz her, she was so wholly
unsuspicious. You have not seen her, have you?”

“No,” came faintly from the lips which tried to smile; but Wilford knew
who was the heroine of that story; wondering more and more where she
was, and feeling a sensation of uneasiness, as he thought, “Can any
accident have befallen her?”

It was hardly probable; but Wilford felt very uncomfortable after
hearing the story, which had brought a pang of doubt and fear to another
mind than his. From the very first Helen feared that Aunt Betsy was the
“odd woman” who had gotten upon the train at some station which Bob
could not remember; while, as the story progressed, she was sure of it,
for she had heard of the sheep-pasture trouble, and of Aunt Betsy’s
projected visit to New York, privately writing to her mother not to
suffer it, as Wilford would be greatly vexed. “Yes, it must be Aunt
Betsy,” she thought, and she turned so white that Mark, who was watching
both her and Wilford, came as soon as possible to her side, and adroitly
separating her from the group around, said softly, “You look tired, Miss
Lennox. Come with me a moment. I have something to tell you.”

Alone with her in the hall, he continued, “I have the sequel of Bob
Reynolds’s story. That woman——”

“Was Aunt Betsy,” Helen gasped. “But where is she now? That was two days
ago. Tell me if you know. Mr. Ray, you _do_ know,” and in an agony of
fear lest something dreadful had happened, she laid her hand on Mark’s,
beseeching him to tell her if he knew where Aunt Betsy was.

It was worth torturing her for a moment to see the pleading look in her
eyes, and feel the soft touch of the hand which he took between both his
own, holding it there while he answered her: “Aunt Betsy is at my house;
kidnapped by me for safe keeping, until I could consult with you. Was
that right?” he asked, as a flush came to Helen’s cheek, and an
expression to her eye which told that his meaning was understood.

“Is she there willingly? How did it happen?” was Helen’s reply, her hand
still in those of Mark, who, thus circumstanced, grew very warm and
eloquent with the sequel to Bob’s story, making it as long as possible,
telling what he knew, and also what he had done.

He had not implicated Wilford in any way; but Helen read it all, saying
more to herself than him, “And _she_ was at the opera. Wilford must have
seen her, and that is why he left so suddenly, and why he has appeared
so absent and nervous to-day, as if expecting something. Excuse me,” she
suddenly added, drawing her hand away and stepping back a little, “I
forgot that I was talking as if _you_ knew.”

“I do know more than you suppose—that is, I know human nature—and I know
Will better than I did that morning when I first met you,” Mark said,
glancing at the freed hand he wished so much to take again.

But Helen kept her hands to herself, and answered him,

“You did right under the circumstances. It would have been unpleasant
for us all had she happened here to-night. I thank you, Mr. Ray—you and
your mother, too—more than I can express. I will see her early to-morrow
morning. Tell her so, please, and again I thank you.”

There were tears in Helen’s soft brown eyes, and they glittered like
diamonds as she looked even more than spoke her thanks to the young man,
who, for another look like that, would have driven Aunt Betsy amid the
gayest crowd that ever frequented the Park, and sworn she was his blood
relation! A few words from Mrs. Banker confirmed what Mark had said, and
it was not strange if that night Miss Lennox, usually so entertaining,
was a little absent, for her thoughts were up in that chamber on
Twenty-third Street, where Aunt Betsy sat alone, but not lonely, for her
mind was very busy with all she had been through since leaving
Silverton, while something kept suggesting to her that it would have
been wiser and better to have stayed at home than to have ventured where
she was so sadly out of place. This last came gradually to Aunt Betsy as
she thought the matter over, and remembered Wilford as he had appeared
each time he came to Silverton.

“I ain’t like him; I ain’t like this Miss Banker; I ain’t like anybody,”
she whispered. “I’m nothin’ but a homely, old-fashioned woman, without
larnin’, without nothin’. I might know I wasn’t wanted,” and a rain of
tears fell over the wrinkled face as she uttered this tirade against
herself, standing before the long mirror, and inspecting the image it
gave back of a plain, unpolished countrywoman, not much resembling Mrs.
Banker, it must be confessed, nor much resembling the gay young ladies
she had seen at the opera the previous night. “I won’t go near Katy,”
she continued; “it would only mortify her, and I don’t want to make her
trouble. The poor thing’s face looked as if she had it now, and I won’t
add to it. I’ll start for home to-morrow. There’s Miss Smith, in
Springfield, will keep me over night, and Katy shan’t be bothered.”

When this decision was reached, Aunt Betsy felt a great deal better, and
taking the Bible from the table, she sat down again before the fire,
opening, as by a special Providence, to the chapter where the hewers of
wood and drawers of water are mentioned as being necessary to mankind,
each filling his appointed place.

“That’s me—that’s Betsy Barlow,” she whispered, taking off her glasses
to wipe away the moisture gathering so fast upon them. Then resuming
them, she continued, “I’m a hewer of wood—a drawer of water. God made me
so, and shall the clay find fault with the potter, for making it into a
homely jug? No, indeed; and I was a very foolish old jug to think of
sticking myself in with the china ware. But I’ve larnt a lesson,” and
the philosophic old woman read on, feeling comforted to know that though
a vessel of the rudest make, a paltry _jug_, as she called herself, the
promises were still for her as much as for the finer wares—aye, that
there was more hope of her entering at last where “the walls are all of
precious stones and the streets are paved with gold,” than of those
whose good things are given so abundantly during their lifetime.

Assured, comforted, and encouraged, she fell asleep at last, and when
Mrs. Banker returned she found her slumbering quietly in her chair, the
Bible open on her lap, and her finger upon the passage referring to the
hewers of wood and drawers of water, as if that was the last thing read.

Next morning, at a comparatively early hour, Helen stood ringing the
bell of Mrs. Banker’s house. She had said to Katy that she was going
out, and could not tell just when she might return, and as Katy never
questioned her acts, while Wilford was too intent upon his own miserable
thoughts as to “where Aunt Betsy could be, or what had befallen her,” to
heed any one else, no inquiries were made, and no obstacles put in the
way of her going direct to Mrs. Banker’s, where Mark met her himself,
holding her cold hand until he led her to the fire and placed her in a
chair. He knew she would rather meet her aunt alone, and so when he
heard her step in the hall he left the room, holding the door for Aunt
Betsy, who wept like a little child at the sight of Helen, accusing
herself of being a fool, who ought to be shut up in an insane asylum,
but persisting in saying she was going home that very day without seeing
Katy at all. “If she was here I’d like it, but I shan’t go there, for I
know Wilford don’t want me.” Then she told Helen all she did not already
know of her trip to New York, her visit to the opera, her staying with
the Tubbses and her meeting with Mark, the best young chap she ever saw,
not even excepting Morris. “If he was my own son he couldn’t be kinder,”
she added, “and I mistrust he hopes to be my nephew. You can’t do
better; and, if he offers, take him.”

Helen’s cheeks were crimson as she waived this part of the conversation,
and wished aloud that she had come around in the carriage, as she could
thus have taken Aunt Betsy over the city before the train would leave.

“Mark spoke of that when he heard I was going to-day,” Aunt Betsy said;
“I’ll warrant you he’ll attend to it.”

Aunt Betsy was right, for when Mark and his mother joined their guests,
and learned that Aunt Betsy’s intention was unchanged, he suggested the
ride, and offered the use of their carriage. Helen did not decline the
offer, and ere a half hour had passed, Aunt Betsy, with her satchel,
umbrella, and cap-box, was comfortably adjusted in Mrs. Banker’s
carriage with Helen beside her, while Mark bade his coachman drive
wherever Miss Lennox wished to go, taking care to reach the train in
time.

They were tearful thanks which Aunt Betsy gave to her kind friends as
she was driven away to the Bowery to say good-bye, lest the Tubbses
should “think her suddenly stuck up.”

“Would you mind taking ’Tilda in? It would please her mightily,” Aunt
Betsy whispered, as they were alighting in front of Mr. Peter Tubbs’s;
and as the result of this suggestion, the carriage, when again it
emerged into Broadway, held Mattie Tubbs, prouder than she had been in
all her life before, while the gratified mother at home felt amply
repaid for all the trouble her visitor had made her.

And Helen enjoyed it, too, finding Mattie a little insipid and tiresome,
but feeling happy in the consciousness that she was making others happy.
It was a long drive they took, and Aunt Betsy saw so much that her brain
grew giddy, and she was glad when they started for the depot, taking
Madison Square on the way, and passing Katy’s house.

“I dare say it’s all grand and smart,” Aunt Betsy said, as she leaned
out to look at it, “but I feel best at _hum_, where they are used to
me.”

And her face did wear a brighter look, when finally seated in the cars,
than it had before since she left Silverton.

“You’ll be home in April, and maybe Katy’ll come too,” she whispered as
she kissed Helen good-bye, and shook hands with Mattie Tubbs, charging
her again never to let the folks in Silverton know that “Betsy Barlow
had been seen at a play-house.”

Slowly the cars moved away, and Helen was driven home, leaving Mattie
alone in her glory as she rolled down the Bowery, enjoying the éclat of
her position, but feeling a little chagrined at not meeting a single
acquaintance by whom to be envied and admired.

Katy did not ask where Helen had been, for she was wholly absorbed in
Marian Hazelton’s letter, telling how fast the baby improved, how pretty
it was growing, and how fond both she and Mrs. Hubbell were of it,
loving it almost as well as if it were their own.

“I know now it was best for it to go, but it was hard at first,” Katy
said, putting the letter away, and sighing wearily as she missed the
clasp of the little arms and touch of the baby lips.

Several times Helen was tempted to tell her of Aunt Betsy’s visit, but
decided finally not to do so, and Katy never knew what it was which for
many days made Wilford so nervous and uneasy, starting at every sudden
ring, going often to the window, and looking out into the street as if
expecting some one, while he grew strangely anxious for news from
Silverton, asking when Katy had heard from home, and why she did not
write. One there was, however, who knew, and who enjoyed watching
Wilford, and guessing just how his anxiety grew as day after day went
by; and she neither came nor was heard from in any way, for Helen did
not show the letter apprising her of Aunt Betsy’s safe arrival home, and
so all in Wilford’s mind was vague conjecture.

She _had_ been in New York, as was proven by Bob Reynolds, but where was
she now, and who were those people with her? Had they entrapped her into
some snare, and possibly murdered her? Such things were not of rare
occurrence, and Wilford actually grew thin with the uncertainty which
hung over the fate of one whom in his present state of mind he would
have warmly welcomed to his fireside, had there been a dozen dinner
parties in progress. At last, as he sat one day in his office, with the
same worried look on his face, Mark, who had been watching him, said,

“By the way, Will, how did that sheep-pasture come out, or didn’t the
client appear?”

“Mark,” and Wilford’s voice was husky with emotion; “you’ve stumbled
upon the very thing which is tormenting my life out of me. Aunt Betsy
has never turned up or been heard from since that night. For aught I
know she was murdered, or spirited away, and I am half distracted. I’d
give a thousand dollars to know what has become of her.”

“Put down half that pile and I’ll tell you,” was Mark’s _nonchalant_
reply, while Wilford, seizing his shoulder, and compelling him to look
up, exclaimed,

“You know, then? Tell me—you do know. Where is she?”

“Safe in Silverton, I presume,” was the reply, and then Mark told his
story, to which Wilford listened, half incredulous, half indignant, and
a good deal relieved.

“You are a splendid fellow, Mark, though I must say you _meddled_, but I
know you did not do it unselfishly. Perhaps with Katy not won I might do
the same. Yes, on the whole, I thank you and Helen for saving me that
mortification. I feel like a new man, knowing the old lady is safe at
home, where I trust she will remain. And that Tom, who called here
yesterday, asking to be our clerk, is the youth I saw at the opera. I
thought his face was familiar. Let him come, of course. In my gratitude
I feel like patronizing the entire Tubbs family.”

And so it was this flash of gratitude for a peril escaped which procured
for young _Tom Tubbs_ the situation of clerk in the office of Cameron &
Ray, the application for such situation having been urged by the
ambitious Mattie, who felt her dignity considerably increased when she
could speak of brother Tom in company with Messrs. Cameron and Ray.




                            CHAPTER XXVIII.
                         THE SEVENTH REGIMENT.


Does the reader remember the pleasant spring days when the thunder of
Fort Sumter’s bombardment came echoing up the Northern hills and across
the Western prairies, stopping for a moment the pulses of the nation,
but quickening them again with a mighty power as from Maine to
California man after man arose to meet the misguided foe trailing our
honored flag in the dust? Nowhere, perhaps, was the excitement so great
or the feeling so strong as in New York, when the Seventh Regiment was
ordered to Washington, its members never faltering or holding back, but
with a nerving of the will and a putting aside of self, preparing to do
their duty. Conspicuous among them was Mark Ray, who, laughing at his
mother’s fears, kissed her livid cheek, and then with a pang remembered
Helen—wondering how she would feel, and thinking the path to danger
would be so much easier if he knew that her prayers would go with him,
shielding him from harm and bringing him back again to the sunshine of
her presence.

And before he went Mark must know this for certain, and he chided
himself for having put it off so long. True she had been sick and
confined to her room for a long while after Aunt Betsy’s memorable
visit; and when she was able to go out, _Lent_ had put a stop to her
mingling in festive scenes, so that he had seen but little of her, and
had never met her alone. But he would write that very day. She knew, of
course, that he was going. She would say that he did well to go; and she
would answer _yes_ to the question he would ask her. Mark felt sure of
that; but still the letter he wrote was eloquent with his pleadings for
her love, while he confessed his own, and asked that she would give him
the right to think of her as his affianced bride—to know she waited for
his return, and would crown it at last with the full fruition of her
priceless love.

“I meet a few of my particular friends at Mrs. Grandon’s to-night,” he
added, in conclusion. “Can I hope to see you there, taking your presence
as a token that I may speak and tell you in words what I have so poorly
written?”

This note he would not trust to the post, but deliver himself, and thus
avoid the possibility of a mistake, he said; and half an hour later he
rang the bell at No.——, asking “if _Miss Lennox_ was at home.” She was;
and handing the girl the note, Mark ran down the steps, while the
servant carried the missive to the library, where upon the table lay
other letters received that morning, and as yet unopened; for Katy was
very busy, and Helen was dressing to go out with Juno Cameron, who had
graciously asked her to drive with her and look at a picture she had set
her heart on having.

Juno had not yet appeared; but Mark was scarcely out of sight when she
came in with the familiarity of a sister, and entered the library to
wait. Carelessly turning the books upon the table, she stumbled upon
Mark’s letter, which, through some defect in the envelope, had become
unsealed, and lay with its edge lifted so that to peer at its contents
was a very easy matter had she been so disposed. But Juno, who knew the
handwriting—could not at first bring herself even to touch what was
intended for her rival. But as she gazed the longing grew, until at last
she took it in her hand, turning it to the light, and tracing distinctly
the words, “My dear Helen,” while a storm of pain and passion swept over
her, mingled with a feeling of shame that she had let herself down so
far.

“It does not matter now,” the tempter whispered. “You may as well read
it and know the worst. Nobody will suspect it,” and she was about to
take the folded letter from the envelope, intending to replace it after
it was read, when a rapid step warned her some one was coming, and
hastily thrusting the letter in her pocket, she dropped her veil to
cover her confusion, and then confronted _Helen Lennox_, ready for the
drive, and unconscious of the wrong which could not then be righted.

Juno did not mean to keep the letter, and all that morning she was
devising measures for making restitution, thinking once to confess the
whole, but shrinking from that as more than she could do. As they were
driving home, they met Mark Ray; but Helen, who chanced to be looking in
an opposite direction, did not see the earnest look of scrutiny he gave
her, scarcely heeding Juno, whose voice trembled as she spoke of him to
Helen and his intended departure. Helen observed the tremor in her
voice, and pitied the girl whose agitation she fancied arose from the
fact that her lover was so soon to go where danger and possibly death
was waiting. In Helen’s heart, too, there was a pang whenever she
remembered Mark, and what had so recently passed between them, raising
hopes, which now were wholly blasted. For he _was_ Juno’s, she believed,
and the grief at his projected departure was the cause of that young
lady’s softened and even humble demeanor, as she insisted on Helen’s
stopping at her house for lunch before going home.

To this Helen consented—Juno still revolving in her mind how to return
the letter, which grew more and more a horror to her. It was in her
pocket, she knew, for she had felt it there when, after lunch, she went
to her room for a fresh handkerchief. She would accompany Helen
home,—would manage to slip into the library alone, and put it partly
under a book, so that it would appear to be hidden, and thus account for
its not having been seen before. This seemed a very clever plan, and
with her spirits quite elated, Juno drove round with Helen, finding no
one in the parlor below, and felicitating herself upon the fact that
Helen left her alone while she ran up to Katy.

“Now is my time,” she thought, stealing noiselessly into the library and
feeling for the letter.

But _it was not there_, and no amount of search, no shaking of
handkerchiefs, or turning of pocket inside out could avail to find it.
The letter was lost, and in the utmost consternation Juno returned to
the parlor, appearing so abstracted as scarcely to be civil when Katy
came down to see her; asking if she was going that night to Sybil
Grandon’s, and talking of the dreadful war, which she hoped would not be
a war after all. Juno was too wretched to talk, and after a few moments
she started for home, hunting in her own room and through the halls, but
failing in her search, and finally giving it up, with the consoling
reflection that were it found in the street, no suspicion could fasten
on her; and as fear of detection, rather than contrition for the sin,
had been the cause of her distress, she grew comparatively calm, save
when her conscience made itself heard and admonished confession as the
only reparation which was now in her power. But Juno could not confess,
and all that day she was absent-minded and silent, while her mother
watched her closely, wondering what connection, if any, there was
between her burning cheeks and the letter she had found upon the floor
in her daughter’s room just after she had left it; the letter, at whose
contents she had glanced, shutting her lips firmly together, as he saw
that her plans had failed, and finally putting the document away, where
there was less hope of its ever finding its rightful owner, than if it
had remained with Juno. Had Mrs. Cameron supposed that Helen had already
seen it, she would have returned it at once; but of this she had her
doubts, after learning that “Miss Lennox did not go up stairs at all.”
Juno, then, must have been the delinquent; and the mother resolved to
keep the letter till some inquiry was made for it at least.

And so Helen did not guess how anxiously the young man was anticipating
the interview at Sybil Grandon’s, scarcely doubting that she would be
there, and fancying just the expression of her eyes when they first met
his. Alas for Mark, alas for Helen, that both should be so cruelly
deceived. Had the latter known of the loving words sent from the true
heart which longed for some word of hers to lighten the long march and
beguile the tedious days of absence, she would not have said to Katy,
when asked if she was going to Mrs. Grandon’s, “Oh, no; please don’t
urge me. I would so much rather stay at home.”

Katy would not insist, and so went alone with Wilford to the
entertainment, given to a few young men who seemed as heroes then, when
the full meaning of that word had not been exemplified, as it has been
since in the life so cheerfully laid down, and the heart’s blood poured
so freely, by the tens of thousands who have won a martyr’s and a hero’s
name. With a feeling of chill despair, Mark listened while Katy
explained to Mrs. Grandon, that her sister had fully intended coming in
the morning, but had suddenly changed her mind and begged to be excused.

“I am sorry, and so I am sure is Mr. Ray,” Sybil said, turning lightly
to Mark, whose white face froze the gay laugh on her lips and made her
try to shield him from observation until he had time to recover himself
and appear as usual.

How Mark blessed Sybil Grandon for that thoughtful kindness, and how
wildly the blood throbbed through his veins as he thought “She would not
come. She does not care. I have deceived myself in hoping that she did,
and now welcome _war_, welcome anything which shall help me to forget.”

Mark was very wretched, and his wretchedness showed itself upon his
face, making more than one rally him for what they termed _fear_, while
they tried to reassure him by saying that to the Seventh there could be
no danger after Baltimore was safely passed. This was more than Mark
could bear, and at an early hour he left the house, bidding Katy
good-bye in the hall, and telling her he probably should not see her
again, as he would not have time to call.

“Not call to say good-bye to Helen,” Katy exclaimed.

“Helen will not care,” was Mark’s reply, as he hurried away into the
darkness of the night, more welcome in his present state of mind than
the gay scene he had left.

And this was _all_ Katy had to carry Helen, who had expected to see Mark
once more, to bless him as a sister might bless a brother, speaking to
him words of cheer and bidding him go on to where duty led. But he was
not coming, and she only saw him from the carriage window, as with proud
step and head erect, he passed with his regiment through the densely
crowded streets, where the loud hurrahs of the multitude, which no man
could number, told how terribly in earnest the great city was, and how
its heart was with that gallant band, their pet, and pride, sent forth
on a mission such as it had never had before. But Mark did not see
Helen, and only his mother’s face as it looked when it said, “God bless
my boy,” was clear before his eyes as he moved on through Broadway, and
down Cortlandt street, until the ferry-boat received him, and the crowd
began to disperse.

Now that Mark was gone, Mrs. Banker turned intuitively to Helen, finding
greater comfort in her quiet sympathy than in the more wordy condolence
offered her by Juno, who, as she heard nothing from _the letter_, began
to lose her fears of detection, and even suffer her friends to rally her
upon the absence of Mark Ray, and the anxiety she must feel on his
account. Moments there were, however, when thoughts of the stolen letter
brought a pang, while Helen’s face was a continual reproach, and she was
glad when, towards the first of May, her rival left New York for
Silverton, where, as the spring and summer work came on, her services
were needed.




                             CHAPTER XXIX.
                        KATY GOES TO SILVERTON.


A summer day in Silverton—a soft, bright August day, when the early
rare-ripes by the well were turning their red cheeks to the sun, and the
flowers in the garden were lifting their heads proudly, and nodding to
each other as if they knew the secret which made that day so bright
above all others. Old Whitey, by the hitching-post, was munching at his
oats and glancing occasionally at the covered buggy standing on the
green sward, fresh and clean as water from the pond could make it; the
harness, lying upon a rock, where Katy used to feed the sheep with salt,
and the whip standing upright in its socket, were waiting for the
deacon, who was donning his best suit of clothes, even to a stiff shirt
collar which almost cut his ears, his face shining with anticipations
which he knew would be realized. Katy was really coming home, and in
proof thereof there were behind the house and barn piles of rubbish,
lath and plaster, mouldy paper and broken bricks, the tokens and remains
of the repairing process, which for so long a time had made the
farm-house a scene of dire confusion, driving its inmates nearly
distracted, except when they remembered for whose sake they endured so
much, inhaling clouds of lime, stepping over heaps of mortar, tearing
their dress skirts on sundry nails projecting from every conceivable
quarter, and wondering the while if the masons ever would finish or the
carpenters be gone.

As a condition on which Katy might be permitted to come home, Wilford
had stipulated an improvement in the interior arrangement of the house,
offering to bear the expense even to the furnishing of the rooms. To
this the family demurred at first, not liking Wilford’s dictatorial
manner, nor his insinuation that their home was not good enough for his
wife. But Helen turned the tide, appreciating Wilford’s feelings better
than the others could do, and urging a compliance with his request.

“Anything to get Katy home,” she said, and so the chimney was torn away,
a window was cut here and an addition made there, until the house was
really improved with its pleasant, modern parlor and the large airy
bedroom, with bathing-room attached, the whole the idea of Wilford, who
graciously deigned to come out once or twice from New London, where he
was spending a few weeks, to superintend the work and suggest how it
should be done.

The furniture, too, which he sent on from New York, was perfect in its
kind, and suitable in every respect and Helen enjoyed the settling very
much, and when it was finished it was hard telling which was the more
pleased, she or good Aunt Betsy, who, having confessed in a general kind
of way at a sewing society, that she did go to a play-house, and was not
so very sorry either, except as the example might do harm, had nothing
to fear from New York, and was proportionably happy. At least she would
have been if Morris had not seemed so _off_, as she expressed it, taking
but little interest in the preparations and evincing no pleasure at
Katy’s expected visit. He had been polite to Wilford, had kept him at
Linwood, taking him to and from the depot, but even Wilford had thought
him changed, telling Katy how very sober and grave he had become, rarely
smiling, and not seeming to care to talk unless it were about his
profession or on some religious topic. And Morris _was_ greatly changed.
The wound which in most hearts would have healed by this time, had grown
deeper with each succeeding year, while from all he heard he felt sure
that Katy’s marriage was a sad mistake, wishing sometimes that he had
spoken, and so perhaps have saved her from the life in which she could
not be wholly free. “She would be happier with me,” he had said, with a
sad smile to Helen, when she told him of some things which she had not
mentioned elsewhere, and there were great tears in Morris’s eyes, when
Helen spoke of Katy’s distress, and the look which came into her face
when baby was taken away. Times there were when the silent Doctor,
living alone at Linwood, felt that his grief was too great to bear. But
the deep waters were always forded safely, and Morris’s faith in God
prevailed, so that only a dull heavy pain remained, with the
consciousness that it was no sin to remember Katy as she was remembered
now. Oh how he longed to see her, and yet how he dreaded it, lest poor
weak human flesh should prove inadequate to the sight. But she was
coming home; Providence had ordered that and he accepted it, looking
eagerly for the time, but repressing his eagerness, so that not even
Helen suspected how impatient he was for the day of her return. Four
weeks she had been at the Pequot House in New London, occupying a little
cottage and luxuriating in the joy of having her child with her almost
every day. Country air and country nursing had wrought wonders in the
baby, which had grown so beautiful and bright that it was no longer in
Wilford’s way save as it took too much of Katy’s time, and made her care
less for the gay crowd at the hotel.

Marian was working at her trade, and never came to the hotel except one
day when Wilford was in New York, but that day sufficed for Katy to know
that after herself it was Marian whom baby loved the best—Marian, who
cared for it even more than Mrs. Hubbell. And Katy was glad to have it
so, especially after Wilford and his mother decided that she must leave
the child in New London while she made the visit to Silverton.

Wilford did not like her taking so much care of it as she was inclined
to do. It had grown too heavy for her to lift; it was better with Mrs.
Hubbell, he said, and so to the inmates of the farm-house Katy wrote
that baby was not coming.

They were bitterly disappointed, for Katy’s baby had been anticipated
quite as much as Katy herself, and Aunt Betsy had brought from the
wood-shed chamber a cradle which nearly forty years before had rocked
the deacon’s only child, the little boy, who died just as he had learned
to lisp his mother’s name. As a memento of those days the cradle had
been kept, Katy using it sometimes for her kittens and her dolls, until
she grew too old for that, when it was put away beneath the eaves whence
Aunt Betsy dragged it, scouring it with soap and sand, until it was
white as snow. But it would not be needed, and with a sigh the old lady
carried it back, thinking “things had come to a pretty pass when a woman
who could dance and carouse till twelve o’clock at night was too weakly
to take care of her child,” and feeling a very little awe of Katy who
must have grown so fine a lady.

But all this passed away as the time drew near when Katy was to come,
and no one seemed happier than Aunt Betsy on the morning when Uncle
Ephraim drove from the door, setting old Whitey into a canter, which, by
the time the “race” was reached, had become a rapid trot, the old man
holding up his reins and looking proudly at the oat-fed animal, speeding
along so fast.

He did not have long to wait this time, for the train soon came rolling
across the meadow, and while his head was turned towards the car where
he fancied she might be, a pair of arms was thrown impetuously round his
neck, and a little figure, standing on tiptoe, almost pulled him down in
its attempts to kiss him.

“Uncle Eph! oh, Uncle Eph, I’ve come! I’m here!” a young voice cried;
but the words the deacon would have spoken were smothered by the kisses
pressed upon his lips, kisses which only came to an end when a voice
said rather reprovingly, “There, Katy, that will do. You have almost
strangled him.”

Wilford had not been expected, and the expression of the deacon’s face
was not a very cordial greeting to the young man who hastened to explain
that he was going directly on to Boston. In his presence the deacon was
not quite natural, but he lifted in his arms his “little Katy-did,” and
looked straight into her face, where there were as yet no real lines of
care, only shadows, which told that in some respects she was not the
same Katy he had parted with two years before. There was a good deal of
the _city_ about her dress and style; and the deacon felt a little
overawed at first; but this wore off as, on their way to the farm-house,
she talked to him in her old, loving manner, and asked questions about
the people he supposed she had forgotten, nodding to everybody she met,
whether she knew them or not, and at last, as the old house came in
sight, hiding her face in a gush of happy tears upon his neck. Scarcely
waiting for old Whitey to stop, but with one leap clearing the wheel,
she threw herself into the midst of the women waiting on the door step
to meet her. It was a joyful meeting, and when the first excitement was
over, Katy inspected the improvements, praising them all and
congratulating herself upon the nice time she was to have.

“You don’t know what a luxury it is to feel that I can rest,” she said
to Helen.

“Didn’t you rest at New London?” Helen asked.

“Yes, some,” Katy replied; “but there were dances every night, or sails
upon the bay, and I had to go, for many of our friends were there, and
Wilford was not willing for me to be quiet.”

This, then, was the reason why Katy came home so weary and pale, and
craving so much the rest she had not had in more than two years. But she
would get it now, and before the first dinner was eaten some of her old
color came stealing back to her cheeks, and her eyes began to dance just
as they used to do, while her merry voice rang out in silvery peals at
Aunt Betsy’s quaint remarks, which struck her so forcibly from not
having heard them for so long a time. Freed from the restraint of her
husband’s presence, she came back at once to what she was when a young,
careless girl she sat upon the door-steps and curled the dandelion
stalks. She did not do this now, for there were none to curl; but she
strung upon a thread the delicate petals of the phlox growing by the
door, and then bound it as a crown about the head of her mother, who
could not quite recognize her Katy in the elegant Mrs. Wilford Cameron,
with rustling silk, and diamonds flashing on her hands every time they
moved. But when she saw her racing with the old brown goat and its
little kid out in the apple orchard, her head uncovered, and her bright
curls blowing about her face, the feeling disappeared, and she felt that
Katy had indeed come back again.

Katy had inquired for Morris immediately after her arrival, but in her
excitement she had forgotten him again, until tea was over, when, just
as she had done on the day of her return from Canandaigua, she took her
hat and started on the well-worn path toward Linwood. Airily she tripped
along, her light plaid silk gleaming through the deep green of the trees
and revealing her coming to the tired man sitting upon a little rustic
seat, beneath a chestnut tree, where he once had sat with Katy, and
extracted a _cruel_ sliver from her hand, kissing the place to make it
well as she told him to. She was a child then, a little girl of twelve,
and he was twenty, but the sight of her pure face lifted confidingly to
his had stirred his heart as no other face had stirred it since, making
him look forward to a time when the hand he kissed would be his own, and
his the fairy form he watched so carefully as it expanded day by day
into the perfect woman. He was thinking of that time now, and how
differently it had all turned out, when he heard the bounding step and
saw her coming toward him, swinging her hat in childish abandon, and
warbling a song she had learned from him.

“Morris, oh, Morris!” she cried, as he ran eagerly forward; “I am so
glad to see you. It seems so nice to be with you once more here in the
dear old woods. Don’t get up—please don’t get up,” she continued, as he
started to rise.

She was standing before him, a hand on either side of his face, into
which she was looking quite as wistfully as he was regarding her.
Something she missed in his manner, which troubled her; and thinking she
knew what it was she said to him, “Why don’t you kiss me, Morris? You
used to. Ain’t you glad to see me?”

“Yes, very glad,” he answered, and drawing her down beside him, he
kissed her twice, but so gravely, that Katy was not satisfied at all,
and tears gathered in her eyes as she tried to think what ailed Morris.

He was very thin, and there were a few white hairs about his temples, so
that, though four years younger than her husband, he seemed to her much
older, quite grandfatherly in fact, and this accounted for the liberties
she took, asking what was the matter, and trying to make him _like her
again_, by assuring him that she was not as vain and foolish as he might
suppose from what Helen had probably told him of her life since leaving
Silverton. “I do not like it at all,” she said. “I am in it, and must
conform; but, oh Morris! you don’t know how much happier I should be if
Wilford were just like you, and lived at Linwood instead of New York. I
should be so happy here with baby all the time.”

It was well she spoke that name, for Morris could not have borne much
more; but the mention of her child quieted him at once, so that he could
calmly tell her she _was_ the same to him she always had been, while
with his next breath he asked, “Where is your baby, Katy?” adding with a
smile, “I can remember when you were a baby, and I held you in my arms.”

“Can you really?” Katy said: and as if that remembrance made him older
than the hills, she nestled her curly head against his shoulder, while
she told him of her bright-eyed darling, and as she talked, the
mother-love which spread itself over her girlish face made it more
beautiful than anything Morris had ever seen.

“Surely an angel’s countenance cannot be fairer, purer than hers,” he
thought, as she talked of the only thing which had a power to separate
her from him, making her seem as a friend, or at most as a beloved
sister.

A long time they talked together, and the sun was setting ere Morris
rose, suggesting that she go home, as the night dew would soon be
falling.

“And you are not as strong as you once were,” he added, pulling her
shawl around her shoulders with careful solicitude, and thinking how
slender she had become.

From the back parlor Helen saw them coming up the path, detecting the
changed expression of Morris’s face, and feeling a pang of fear when, as
he left them after nine o’clock, she heard her mother say that he had
not appeared so natural since Katy went away as he had done that night.
Knowing what she did, Helen trembled for Morris, with this terrible
temptation before him, and Morris trembled for himself as he went back
the lonely path, and stopped again beneath the chestnut tree where he
had so lately sat with Katy. There was a great fear at his heart, and it
found utterance in words as kneeling by the rustic bench with only the
lonely night around him and the green boughs over head, he asked that he
might be kept from sin, both in thought and deed, and be to Katy Cameron
just what she took him for, her friend and elder brother. And God, who
knew the sincerity of the heart thus pleading before him, heard and
answered the prayer, so that after that first night of trial Morris
could look on Katy without a wish that she were otherwise than Wilford
Cameron’s wife and the mother of his child. He was happier because of
her being at the farm-house, though he did not go there one half as
often as she came to him.

Those September days were happy ones to Katy, who became a child again—a
petted, spoiled child, whom every one caressed and suffered to have her
way. To Uncle Ephraim it was as if some bright angel had suddenly
dropped into his path, and flooded it with sunshine. He was so glad to
have again his “Katy-did,” who went with him to the fields, waiting
patiently till his work was done, and telling him of all the wondrous
things she saw abroad, but speaking little of her city life. That was
something she did not care to talk about, and but for Wilford’s letters,
and the frequent mention of baby, the deacon could easily have imagined
that Katy had never left him. But these were barriers between the old
life and the present; these were the insignia of _Mrs. Wilford Cameron_,
who was watched and envied by the curious Silvertonians, and pronounced
charming by them all. Still there was one drawback to Katy’s happiness.
She missed her child, mourning for it so much that her family, quite as
anxious as herself to see it, suggested her sending for it. It would
surely take no harm with them, and Marian would come with it, if Mrs.
Hubbell could not. To this plan Katy listened more willingly from the
fact that Wilford had gone West, and the greater the distance between
them the more she dared to do. And so Marian Hazelton was one day
startled at the sudden appearance at the cottage of Katy, who had come
to take her and baby to Silverton.

There was no resisting the vehemence of Katy’s arguments, and before the
next day’s sun-setting, the farm-house, usually so quiet and orderly,
had been turned into one general nursery, where Baby Cameron reigned
supreme, screaming with delight at the _tin_ ware which Aunt Betsy
brought out, from the cake-cutter to the dipper, the little creature
beating a noisy tattoo upon the latter with an iron spoon, and then for
diversion burying its fat dimpled hands in Uncle Ephraim’s long white
hair, for the old man went down upon all fours to do his
great-grand-niece homage.

That night Morris came up, stopping suddenly as a loud baby laugh
reached him, even across the orchard, and leaning for a moment against
the wall, while he tried to prepare himself for the shock it would be to
see Katy’s child, and hold it in his arms, as he knew he must, or the
mother be aggrieved.

He had supposed it was pretty, but he was not prepared for the beautiful
little cherub which in its short white dress, with its soft curls of
golden brown clustering about its head, stood holding to a chair,
pushing it occasionally, and venturing now and then to take a step,
while its infantile laugh mingled with the screams of its delighted
auditors, watching it with so much interest.

There was one great, bitter, burning pang, and then, folding his arms
composedly upon the window sill, Dr. Grant stood looking in upon the
occupants of the room, whistling at last to baby, as he was accustomed
to whistle to the children of his patients.

“Oh, Morris,” Katy cried, “Baby can almost walk, Marian has taken so
much pains, and she can say ‘papa.’ Isn’t she a beauty?”

Baby had turned her head by this time, her ear caught by the whistle and
her eye arrested by something in Morris which fascinated her gaze.
Perhaps she thought of Wilford, of whom she had been very fond, for she
pushed her chair towards him and then held up her fat arms for him to
take her.

Never was mother prouder than Katy during the first few days succeeding
baby’s arrival, while the family seemed to tread on air, so swiftly the
time went by with that active little life in their midst, stirring them
up so constantly, putting to rout all their rules of order and keeping
their house in a state of delightful confusion. It was wonderful how
rapidly the child improved with so many teachers, learning to lisp its
mother’s name and taught by her, attempting to say “Doctor.” From the
very first the child took to Morris, crying after him whenever he went
away, and hailing his arrival with a crow of joy and an eager attempt to
reach him.

“It was altogether too forward for this world,” Aunt Betsy often said,
shaking her head ominously, but not really meaning what she predicted,
even when for a few days it did not seem as bright as usual, but lay
quietly in Katy’s lap, a blue look about the mouth and a flush upon its
cheeks, which neither Morris nor Marian liked.

More accustomed to children than the other members of the family, they
both watched it closely, Morris coming over twice one day, and the last
time he came regarding Katy with a look as if he would fain ward off
from her some evil which he feared.

“What is it, Morris?” she asked. “Is baby going to be very sick?” and a
great crushing fear came upon her as she waited for his answer.

“I hope not,” he said; “I cannot tell as yet; the symptoms are like
cholera infantum, of which I have several cases, but if taken in time I
apprehend no danger.”

There was a low shriek and baby opened its heavy lids and moaned, while
Helen came at once to Katy, who was holding her hand upon her heart as
if the pain had entered there. To Marian it was no news, for ever since
the early morning she had suspected the nature of the disease stealing
over the little child. All night the light burned in the farm-house,
where there were anxious, troubled faces, Katy bending constantly over
her darling, and even amid her terrible anxiety, dreading Wilford’s
displeasure when he should hear what she had done and its possible
result. She did not believe as yet that her child would die; but she
suffered acutely, watching for the early dawn when Morris had said he
would be there, and when at last he came, begging of him to leave his
other patients and care only for baby.

“Would that be right?” Morris asked, and Katy blushed for her
selfishness when she heard how many were sick and dying around them. “I
will spend every leisure moment here,” he said, leaving his directions
with Marian and then hurrying away without a word of hope for the child,
which grew worse so fast that when the night shut down again it lay upon
the pillow, its blue eyes closed and its head thrown back, while its sad
moanings could only be hushed by carrying it in one’s arms about the
room, a task which Katy could not do.

She had tried it at first, refusing all their offers with the reply,
“Baby is mine, and shall I not carry her?”

But the feeble strength gave out, the limbs began to totter, and
staggering backward she cried, “Somebody must take her.”

It was Marian who went forward, Marian, whose face was a puzzle as she
took the infant in her stronger arms, her stony eyes, which had not wept
as yet, fastening themselves upon the face of Wilford Cameron’s child
with a look which seemed to say, “Retribution, retribution.”

But only when she remembered the father, now so proud of his daughter,
was that word in her heart. She could not harbor it when she glanced at
the mother, and her lips moved in earnest prayer that, if possible, God
would not leave her so desolate. An hour later and Morris came,
relieving Marian of her burden, which he carried in his own arms, while
he strove to comfort Katy, who, crouching by the empty crib, was sitting
motionless in a kind of dumb despair, all hope crushed out by his answer
to her entreaties that he would tell her the truth, and keep nothing
back.

“I think your baby will die,” he said to her very gently, pausing a
moment in awe of the white face, whose expression terrified him, it was
so full of agony.

Bowing her head upon her hands, poor Katy whispered sadly, “God must not
take my baby. Oh, Morris, pray that he will not. He will hear and answer
you; I have been so bad I cannot pray, but I am not going to be bad
again. If he will let me keep my darling I will begin a new life. I
_will_ try to serve him. Dear Lord, hear and answer, and not let baby
die.”

She was praying herself now, and Morris’s broad chest heaved as he
glanced at her kneeling figure, and then at the death-like face upon the
pillow, with the pinched look about the nose and lips, which to his
practiced eye was a harbinger of death.

“Its father should be here,” he thought, and when Katy lifted up her
head again he asked if she was sure her husband had not yet returned
from Minnesota.

“Yes, sure—that is, I think he has not,” was Katy’s answer, a chill
creeping over her at the thought of meeting Wilford, and giving him his
daughter dead.

“I shall telegraph in the morning at all events,” Morris continued, “and
if he is not in New York, it will be forwarded.”

“Yes, that will be best,” was the reply, spoken so mournfully that
Morris stopped in front of Katy, and tried to reason with her.

But Katy would not listen, and only answered that _he_ did not know, he
could not feel, he never had been tried.

“Perhaps not,” Morris said; “but Heaven is my witness, Katy, that if I
could save you this pain by giving up my life for baby’s I would do it
willingly; but God does not give us our choice. He knoweth what is best,
and baby is better with Him than us.”

For a moment Katy was silent; then, as a new idea took possession of her
mind, she sprang to Morris’s side and seizing his arm, demanded, “Can an
unbaptized child be saved?”

“We nowhere read that baptism is a saving ordinance,” was Morris’s
answer; while Katy continued, “but _do_ you believe they will be saved?”

“Yes, I do,” was the decided response, which, however, did not ease
Katy’s mind, and she moaned on, “A child of heathen parents may, but _I_
knew better. I knew it was my duty to give the child to God, and for a
foolish fancy withheld the gift until it is too late, and God will take
it without the mark upon its forehead, the water on its brow. Oh, baby,
baby, if she should be lost—_no name, no mark, no baptismal sign_.”

“Not water, but the blood of Jesus cleanseth from all sin,” Morris said,
“and as sure as he died so sure this little one is safe. Besides, there
may be time for the baptism yet—that is, to-morrow. Baby will not die
to-night, and if you like, it still shall have a name.”

Eagerly Katy seized upon that idea, thinking more of the sign, the
water, than the _name_, which scarcely occupied her thoughts at all. It
did not matter what the child was called, so that it became one of the
little ones in glory, and with a calmer, quieter demeanor than she had
shown that day, she saw Morris depart at a late hour; and then turning
to the child which Uncle Ephraim was holding, kissed it lovingly,
whispering as she did so, “Baby shall be baptized—baby shall have the
sign.”




                              CHAPTER XXX.
                            LITTLE GENEVRA.


Morris had telegraphed to New York, receiving in reply that Wilford was
hourly expected home, and would at once hasten on to Silverton. The
clergyman, Mr. Kelly, had also been seen, but owing to a funeral which
would take him out of town, he could not be at the farm-house until five
in the afternoon, when, if the child still lived, he would be glad to
officiate as requested. All this Morris had communicated to Katy, who
listened in a kind of stupor, gasping for breath, when she heard that
Wilford would soon be there, and moaning “that will be too late,” when
told that the baptism could not take place till night. Then kneeling by
the crib where the child was lying, she fastened her great, sad blue
eyes upon the pallid face with an earnestness as if thus she would hold
till nightfall the life flickering so faintly and seeming so nearly
finished. The wailings had ceased, and they no longer carried it in
their arms, but had placed it in its crib, where it lay perfectly still,
save as its eyes occasionally unclosed and turned wistfully towards the
cups, where it knew was something which quenched its raging thirst. Once
indeed, as the hours crept on to noon and Katy bent over it so that her
curls swept its face, it seemed to know her, and the little wasted hand
was uplifted and rested on her cheek with the same caressing motion it
had been wont to use in health. Then hope whispered that it might live,
and with a great cry of joy Katy sobbed, “She knows me, Morris—mother,
see; she knows me. Maybe she will live!”

But the dull stupor which succeeded swept all hope away, and again Katy
resumed her post, watching first her dying child, and then the long
hands of the clock which crept on so slowly, pointing to only two when
she thought it must be five. Would that hour never come, or coming,
would it find baby there? None could answer that last question—they
could only wait and pray; and as they waited the warm September sun
neared the western sky till its yellow beams came stealing through the
window and across the floor to where Katy sat watching its onward
progress, and looking sometimes out upon the hills where the purplish
autumnal haze was lying just as she once loved to see it. But she did
not heed it now, nor care how bright the day with the flitting shadows
dancing on the grass, the tall flowers growing by the door, and old
Whitey standing by the gate, his head stretched towards the house in a
kind of dreamy, listening attitude, as if he, too, knew of the great
sorrow hastening on so fast. The others saw all this, and it made their
hearts ache more as they thought of the beautiful little child going
from their midst when they wished so much to keep her. Katy had only one
idea, and that was of the child, growing very restless now, and throwing
up its arms as if in pain. It was striking five, and with each stroke
the dying baby moaned, while Katy strained her ear to catch the sound of
horses’ hoofs hurrying up the road. The clergyman had come and the
inmates of the house gathered round in silence, while he made ready to
receive the child into Christ’s flock.

Mrs. Lennox had questioned Helen about the name, and Helen had answered,
“Katy knows, I presume. It does not matter,” but no one had spoken
directly to Katy, who had scarcely given it a thought, caring more for
the rite she had deferred so long.

“He must hasten,” she said to Morris, her eyes fixed upon the panting
child she had lifted to her own lap, and thus adjured the clergyman
failed to make the usual inquiry concerning the name he was to give.

Calm and white as a marble statue, Marian Hazelton glided to the back of
Katy’s chair, and pressing both her hands upon it, leaned over Katy so
that her eyes, too, were fixed upon the little face, from which they
never turned but once, and that when the clergyman’s voice was heard
asking for a _name_. There was an instant’s silence, and Katy’s lips
began to move, when one of Marian’s hands was laid upon her head, while
the other took in its own the limp, white baby fingers, and Marian’s
voice was very steady in its tone as it said, “GENEVRA.”

“Yes, Genevra,” Katy whispered, and the solemn words were heard,
“_Genevra_, I baptize thee in the name of the Father, the Son, and the
Holy Ghost.”

Softly the baptismal waters fell upon the pale forehead, and at their
touch the little Genevra’s eyes unclosed, the waxen fingers withdrew
themselves from Marian’s grasp, and again sought the mother’s cheek,
resting there for an instant; while a smile broke around the baby’s
lips, which tried to say “Mam-ma.” Then the hand fell back, down upon
Marian’s, the soft eyes closed, the limbs grew rigid, the shadow of
death grew deeper, and while the prayer was said, and Marian’s tears
fell with Katy’s upon the brow where the baptismal waters were not
dried, the angel came, and when the prayer was ended, Morris, who knew
what the rest did not, took the lifeless form from Katy’s lap, and
whispered to her gently, “Katy, your baby is dead!”

An hour later, and the sweet little creature, which had been a sunbeam
in that house for a few happy days, lay upon the bed where Katy said it
must be laid; its form shrouded in the christening robe which grandma
Cameron had bought, flowers upon its pillow, flowers upon its bosom,
flowers in its hands, which Marian had put there; for Marian’s was the
mind which thought of everything concerning the dead child; and Helen,
as she watched her, wondered at the mighty love which showed itself in
every lineament of her face, the blue veins swelling in her forehead,
her eyes bloodshot, and her lips shut firmly together, as if it were by
mere strength of will that she kept back the scalding tears as she
dressed the little _Genevra_. They spoke of that name in the kitchen
when the first great shock was over, and Helen explained why it had been
Katy’s choice.

It was Morris’s task to comfort poor, stricken Katy, telling her of the
blessed Saviour who loved the little children while here on the earth,
and to whom her darling had surely gone.

“Safe in His arms, it would not come back if it could,” he said, “and
neither would you have it.”

But Katy was the mother, the human love could not so soon submit, but
went out after the lost one with a piteous, agonizing wail.

“Oh, I want my baby back. I know she is safe, but I want her back. She
was my life—all I had to love,” Katy moaned, rocking to and fro in this
her first hour of bereavement, “and Wilford will blame me so much for
bringing my baby here to die. He will say it was my fault; and that I
can’t bear. I know I killed my baby; but I did not mean to. I would give
my life for hers, if like her I was ready,” and into Katy’s face there
came a look of fear which Morris failed to understand, not knowing
Wilford as well as Katy knew him.

At nine o’clock next day there came a telegram. Wilford had reached New
York and would be in Silverton that afternoon, accompanied by Bell. At
this last Marian Hazelton caught as an excuse for what she intended
doing. She could not remain there after Wilford came, nor was it
necessary. Her task was done, or would be when she had finished the
wreath and cross of flowers she was making for the coffin. Laying them
on baby’s pillow, Marian went in quest of Helen, to whom she explained
that as Bell Cameron was coming, and the house would be full, she had
decided upon going to West Silverton, as she wished to see the old lady
with whom she once boarded, and who had been so kind to her.

“I might stay,” she added, as Helen began to protest, “but you do not
need me. I have done all I can, and would rather go where I can be quiet
for a little.”

To this last argument there could be no demur, and so the same carriage
which at ten o’clock went for Wilford Cameron carried Marian Hazelton to
the village where she preferred being left.

                  *       *       *       *       *

In much anxiety and distress Wilford Cameron read the telegram
announcing baby’s illness.

“At Silverton!” he said. “How can that be when the child was at New
London?” and he glanced again at the words:

  “Your child is dying at Silverton. Come at once. M. GRANT”

There could be no mistake, and Wilford’s face grew dark, for he guessed
the truth, censuring Katy much, but censuring her family more. They of
course had encouraged her in the plan of taking her child from New
London, where it was doing so well, and this was the result. Wilford was
proud of his daughter now, and during the few weeks he had been with it,
the little thing had found a strong place in his love. Many times he had
thought of it during his journey West, indulging in bright anticipations
of the coming winter, when he would have it home again. It would not be
in his way now. On the contrary, it would add much to his luxurious
home, and the young father’s heart bounded with thoughts of the
beautiful baby as he had last seen it, crowing its good-bye to him and
trying to lisp his name, its sweet voice haunting him for weeks, and
making him a softer, better man, who did not frown impatiently upon the
little children in the cars, but who took notice of them all, even
laying his hand once on a little curly head which reminded him of
baby’s.

Alas for him! he little dreamed of the great shock in store for him. The
child was undoubtedly very sick, he said, but that it could die was not
possible; and so, though he made ready to hasten to it, he did not
withhold his opinion of the rashness which had brought it to such peril.

“Had Katy obeyed _me_ it would not have happened,” he said, pacing up
and down the parlor and preparing to say more, when Bell came to Katy’s
aid, and lighting upon him, asked what he meant by blaming his wife so
much.

“For my part,” she said, “I think there has been too much fault-finding
and dictation from the very day of the child’s birth till now, and if
God takes it, I shall think it a judgment upon you. First you were vexed
with Katy because it was not a boy, as if she were to blame; then you
did not like it because it was not more promising and fair; next it was
in your way, and so you sent it off, never considering Katy any more
than if she were a mere automaton. Then you must needs forbid her taking
it home to her own family, as if they had no interest in it. I tell you,
Will, it is not _all_ Cameron—there is some Barlow blood in its
veins—Aunt Betsy Barlow’s, too, and you cannot wash it out. Katy had a
right to take her own child where she pleased, and you are not a man if
you censure her for it, as I see in your eyes you mean to do. Suppose it
had stayed in New London and been struck with lightning—_you_ would have
been to blame, of course, according to your own view of things.”

There was too much truth in Bell’s remarks for Wilford to retort, even
had he been disposed, and he contented himself with a haughty toss of
his head as she left the room to get herself in readiness for the
journey she insisted upon taking. Wilford was glad she was going, as her
presence at Silverton would relieve him of the awkward embarrassment he
always felt when there; and magnanimously forgiving her for the
plainness of her speech, he was the most attentive of brothers until
Silverton was reached and he found Dr. Grant awaiting for him. Something
in his face, as he came forward to meet them, startled both Wilford and
Bell, the latter of whom asked quickly,

“Is the baby better?”

“Baby is dead,” was the brief reply, and Wilford staggered back against
the door-post, where he leaned a moment for support in that first great
shock for which he was not prepared.

Upon the doorstep Bell sat down, crying quietly, for she had loved the
child, and she listened anxiously while Morris repeated the particulars
of its illness and then spoke of Katy’s reproaching herself so bitterly
for having brought it from New London. “She seems entirely crushed,” he
continued, when they were driving towards the farm-house. “For a few
hours I trembled for her reason, while the fear that you might reproach
her added much to the poignancy of her grief.”

Morris said this very calmly, as if it were not what he had all the
while intended saying, and his eye turned towards Wilford, whose lips
were compressed with the emotion he was trying to control. It was Bell
who spoke first, Bell who said impulsively, “Poor Katy, I knew she would
feel so, but it is unnecessary, for none but a _savage_ would reproach
her now, even if she were in fault.”

Morris blessed Bell Cameron in his heart, knowing how much influence her
words would have upon her brother, who brushed away the first tear he
had shed, and tried to say that “of course she was not to blame.”

They were in sight of the farm-house now, and Bell, with her city ideas,
was looking curiously at it, mentally pronouncing it a nicer, pleasanter
place than she had supposed. It was very quiet about the house, and old
Whitey’s neigh as Morris’s span of bays came up was the only sound which
greeted them. In the wood-shed door Uncle Ephraim sat smoking his clay
pipe and likening the feathery waves which curled above his head to the
little soul so recently gone upward; while by his side, upon a log of
wood, holding a pan of the luscious peaches she was slicing up for tea,
sat a woman whom Bell knew at once for Aunt Betsy Barlow, and who, pan
in hand, came forward to meet her, curtsying very low when introduced by
Morris, and asking to be excused from shaking hands, inasmuch as hers
were not fit to be touched. Bell’s quick eye took her in at a glance,
from her clean spotted gown to her plain muslin cap tied with a black
ribbon, put on that day with a view to mourning, and then darted off to
Uncle Ephraim, who won her heart at once when she heard how his voice
trembled as he took Wilford’s hand and said so pityingly, so
father-like, “Young man, this is a sad day for you, and you have my
sympathy, for I remember well how my heart ached when, on just such a
day as this, my only child lay dead as yours is lying.”

Every muscle of Wilford’s face quivered, but he was too proud to show
all that he felt, and he was glad when Helen appeared in the door, as
that diverted his mind, and he greeted her cordially, stooping down and
kissing her forehead, a thing he had never done before. But sorrow is a
great softener, and Wilford was very sorry, feeling his loss more here,
where everything was so quiet, so suggestive of death.

“Where is Katy?” he asked.

“She is sleeping for the first time since the baby died. She is in here
with the child. She will stay nowhere else,” Helen said, opening the
door of the bedroom and motioning Wilford in.

With hushed breath and a beating heart, Wilford stepped across the
threshold, and Helen closed the door, leaving him alone with the living
and the dead. Pure and beautiful as some fair blossom, the dead child
lay upon the bed, the curls of golden hair clustering about its head,
and on its lips the smile which settled there when it tried to say
“mamma.” Its dimpled hands were folded upon its breast, where lay the
cross of flowers which Marian Hazelton had made. There were flowers upon
its pillow, flowers around its head, flowers upon its shroud, flowers
everywhere, and itself the fairest flower of all, Wilford thought, as he
stood gazing at it and then let his eye move on to where poor, tired,
worn-out Katy had crept up so close beside it that her breath touched
the marble cheek and her own disordered hair rested upon the pillow of
her child. Even in her sleep her tears kept dropping and the pale lips
quivered in a grieved, touching way. Hard indeed would Wilford have been
had he cherished one bitter thought against the wife so wounded. He
could not when he saw her, but no one ever knew just what passed through
his mind during the half hour he sat there beside her, scarcely stirring
and not daring to kiss his child lest he should awaken her. He could
hear the ticking of his watch and the beating of his heart as he waited
for the first sound which should herald’s Katy’s waking.

Suddenly there was a low, gasping moan, and Katy’s eyes unclosed and
rested on her husband. He was bending over her in an instant, and her
arms were round his neck, while she said to him so sadly,

“Our baby is dead—you’ve nobody left but me; and oh! Wilford, you will
not blame me for bringing baby here? I did not think she’d die. I’d give
my life for hers if that would bring her back. Would you rather it was
me lying as baby lies, and she here in your arms?”

“No, Katy,” Wilford answered, and by his voice Katy knew that she was
wholly forgiven, crying on his neck in a plaintive, piteous way, while
Wilford soothed and pitied and caressed, feeling subdued and humbled,
and we must confess it, feeling too how very good and generous he was to
be thus forbearing, when but for Katy’s act of disobedience they might
not now be childless!

                  *       *       *       *       *

With a great gush of tears Bell Cameron bent over the little form, and
then enfolded Katy in a more loving embrace than she had ever given her
before; but whatever she might have said was prevented by the arrival of
the coffin, and the confusion which followed.

Much Wilford regretted that New York was so far away, for a city coffin
was more suitable, he thought, for a child of his, than the one which
Dr. Grant had ordered. But that was really of less consequence than the
question where the child should be buried. A costly monument at
Greenwood was in accordance with his ideas, but all things indicated a
contemplated burial there in the country churchyard, and sorely
perplexed, he called on Bell as the only Cameron at hand, to know what
he should do.

“Do just as Katy prefers,” was Bell’s reply, as she led him to the
coffin and pointed to the name: “Little Genevra Cameron, aged nine
months and twenty days.”

“What is it, Wilford—what is the matter?” she asked, as her brother
turned whiter than his child.

Had “Genevra Lambert, aged 22,” met his eye, he could not have been more
startled than he was; but soon rallying, he said to Morris,

“The child was baptized, then?”

“Yes, baptized Genevra. That was Katy’s choice, I understand,” Morris
replied, and Wilford bowed his head, wishing the _Genevra_ across the
sea might know that his child bore her name.

“Perhaps she does,” he thought, and his heart grew warm with the fancy
that possibly in that other world, whose existence he never really
doubted, the Genevra he had wronged would care for his child, if
children there need care. “She will know it is mine at least,” he said,
and with a thoughtful face he went in quest of Katy, whom he found
sobbing by the side of the mourning garments just sent in for her
inspection.

Wilford was averse to black. It would not become Katy, he feared, and it
would be an unanswerable reason for her remaining closely home for the
entire winter.

“What’s this?” he asked, lifting the crape veil and dropping it again
with an impatient gesture as Helen replied, “It is Katy’s mourning
veil.”

Contrary to his expectations, black was becoming to Katy, who looked
like a pure white lily, as, leaning on Wilford’s arm next day, she stood
by the grave where they were burying her child.

Wilford had spoken to her of Greenwood, but she had begged so hard that
he had given up that idea, suggesting next, as more in accordance with
city custom, that she remain at home while _he_ only followed to the
grave; but from this Katy recoiled in such distress that he gave that
lip too, and bore, magnanimously as he thought, the sight of all the
Barlows standing around that grave, alike mourners with himself, and all
a right to be there. Wilford felt his loss deeply, and his heart ached
to its very core as he heard the gravel rattling down upon the
coffin-lid which covered the beautiful child he had loved so much. But
amid it all he never for a moment forgot that he was _Wilford Cameron_,
and infinitely superior to the crowd around him—except, indeed, his
wife, his sister, Dr. Grant, and Helen. He could bear to see them sorry,
and feel that by their sorrow they honored the memory of his child. But
for the rest—the village herd, with the Barlows in their train—he had no
affinity, and his manner was as haughty and distant as ever as he passed
through their midst back to the carriage, which took him again to the
farm-house.




                             CHAPTER XXXI.
                           AFTER THE FUNERAL.


Had there been a train back to New York that afternoon Wilford would
most certainly have suggested going; but as there was none he passed the
time as well as he could, finding Bell a great help to him, but
wondering that she could assimilate so readily with such people,
declaring herself in love with the farm-house, and saying she should
like to remain there for weeks, if the days were all as sunny as this,
the dahlias as gorgeously bright, and the peaches by the well as
delicious and ripe. To these the city girl took readily, visiting them
the last thing before retiring, while Wilford found her there when he
arose next morning, her dress and slippers nearly spoiled with the heavy
dew, and her hands full of the fresh fruit which Aunt Betsy knocked from
the tree with a quilting rod; _her_ dress pinned around her waist, and
disclosing a petticoat scrupulously clean, but patched and mended with
so many different patterns and colors that the original ground was lost,
and none could tell whether it had been red or black, buff or blue.
Between Aunt Betsy and Bell the most amicable feeling had existed ever
since the older lady had told the younger how all the summer long she
had been drying fruit, “thimble-berries, blue-bries, and huckle-berries”
for the soldiers, and how she was now drying peaches for Willard
Buxton—once their hired man. These she should tie up in a _salt bag_,
and put in the next box sent by the society of which she seemed to be
head and front, “kind of fust directress” she said, and Bell was
interested at once, for among the soldiers down by the Potomac was one
who carried with him the whole of Bell Cameron’s heart; and who for a
few days had tarried at just such a dwelling as the farm-house, writing
back to her so pleasant descriptions of it, with its fresh grass and
shadowy trees, that she had longed to be there too. So it was through
this halo of romance and love that Bell looked at the farm-house and its
occupants, preferring good Aunt Betsy because she seemed the most
interested in the soldiers, working as soon as breakfast was over upon
the peaches, and kindly furnishing her best check apron, together with
pan and knife for Bell, who offered her assistance, notwithstanding
Wilford’s warning that the fruit would stain her hands, and his advice
that she had better be putting up her things for going home.

“She was not going that day,” she said, point blank, and as Katy too had
asked to stay a little longer, Wilford was compelled to yield, and
taking his hat sauntered off toward Linwood; while Katy went listlessly
into the kitchen, where Bell Cameron sat, her tongue moving much faster
than her hands, which pared so slowly and cut away so much of the juicy
pulp, besides making so frequent journeys to her mouth, that Aunt Betsy
looked in alarm at the rapidly disappearing fruit, wishing to herself
that “Miss Camern had not ’listed.”

But _Miss Camern_ had enlisted, and so had Bob, or rather he had gone to
his duty, and as she worked, she repeated to Helen the particulars of
his going, telling how, when the war first broke out, and Sumter was
bombarded, Bob, who, from long association with Southern men at West
Point, had imbibed many of their ideas, was very sympathetic with the
rebelling States, gaining the cognomen of a secessionist, and once
actually thinking of casting in his lot with that side rather than the
other. But a little incident saved him, she said. The remembrance of a
queer old lady whom he met in the cars, and who, at parting held her
wrinkled hand above his head in benediction, charging him not to go
against the flag, and promising her prayers for his safety if found on
the side of the Union.

“I wish you could hear Bob tell the story, the funny part I mean,” she
continued, narrating as well as she could the particulars of Lieutenant
Bob’s meeting with Aunt Betsy, who, as the story progressed and she
recognized herself in the queer old Yankee woman, who shook hands with
the conductor and was going to law about a sheep-pasture, dropped her
head lower and lower over her pan of peaches, while a scarlet flush
spread itself all over her thin face, but changed to a grayish white as
Bell concluded with “Bob says the memory of that hand lifted above his
head haunted him day and night, during the period of his uncertainty,
and was at last the means of saving him from treachery to his country.”

“Thank God!” came involuntarily from Aunt Betsy’s quivering lips, and,
looking up, Bell saw the great tears running down her cheeks, tears
which she wiped away with her arm, while she said faintly, “That old
woman, who made a fool of herself in the cars, was _me_!”

“You, Miss Barlow, you!” Bell exclaimed, forgetting in her astonishment
to carry to her mouth the luscious half peach she had intended for that
purpose, and dropping it untasted into the pan, while Katy, who had been
listening with considerable interest, came quickly forward saying, “You,
Aunt Betsy! when were you in New York, and why did I never know it?”

It could not be kept back and, unmindful of Bell, Helen explained to
Katy as well as she could the circumstances of Aunt Betsy’s visit to New
York the previous winter.

“And she never let me know it, or come to see me, because—because—” Katy
hesitated, and looked at Bell, who said, pertly, “Because Will is so
abominably proud, and would have made such a fuss. Don’t spoil a story
for relation’s sake, I beg,” and the young lady laughed good-humoredly,
restoring peace to all save Katy, whose face wore a troubled look, and
who soon stole away to her mother, whom she questioned further with
regard to a circumstance which seemed so mysterious to her.

“Miss Barlow,” Bell said, when Katy was gone, “you will forgive me for
repeating that story as I did. Of course I had no idea it was you of
whom I was talking.”

Bell was very earnest, and her eyes looked pleadingly upon Aunt Betsy,
who answered her back, “There’s nothing to forgive. You only told the
truth. I did make an old fool of myself, but if I helped that boy to a
right decision, my journey did some good, and I ain’t sorry now if I did
go to the play-house. I confessed that to the sewing circle, and Mrs.
Deacon Bannister ain’t seemed the same towards me since, but I don’t
care. I beat her on the election to first directress of the Soldier’s
Aid. She didn’t run half as well as me. That chap—you call Bob—is he
anything to you. Is he your beau?”

It was Bell’s turn now to blush and then grow white, while Helen,
lightly touching the superb diamond on her first finger, said, “That
indicates as much. When did it happen, Bell?”

Mrs. Cameron had said they were not a family to bruit their affairs
abroad, and if so, Bell was not like her family, for she answered
frankly, “Just before he went away. It’s a splendid diamond, isn’t it?”
and she held it up for Helen to inspect.

The basket was empty by this time, and as Aunt Betsy went to fill it
from the trees, Bell and Helen were left alone, and the former continued
in a low, sad tone, “I’ve been so sorry sometimes that I did not tell
Bob I _loved_ him, when he wished me to so much.”

“Not tell him you loved him! How then could you tell him yes, as it
appears you did?” Helen asked, and Bell answered, “I could not well help
that; it came so sudden and he begged so hard, saying my promise would
make him a better man, a better soldier and all that. It was the very
night before he went, and so I said that out of _pity_ and _patriotism_
I would give the promise, and I did, but it seemed too much for a woman
to tell a man all at once that she loved him, and I wouldn’t do it, but
I’ve been sorry since; oh, so sorry, during the two days when we heard
nothing from him after that dreadful battle at Bull Run. We knew he was
in it, and I thought I should die until his telegram came saying he was
safe. I did sit down then and commence a letter, confessing all, but I
tore it up, and he don’t know now just how I feel.”

“And do you really love him?” Helen asked, puzzled by this strange girl,
who laughingly held up her soft, white hand, stained and blackened with
the juice of the fruit she had been paring, and said, “Do you suppose I
would spoil my hands like that, and incur _ma chère mamma’s_
displeasure, if Bob were not in the army and I did not care for him? And
now allow me to catechise you. Did Mark Ray ever propose and you refuse
him?”

“Never!” and Helen’s face grew crimson, while Bell continued: “That is
funny. Half our circle think so, though how the impression was first
given I do not know. Mother told me, but would not tell where she
received her information. I heard of it again in a few days, and have
reason to believe that Mrs. Banker knows it too, and feels a little
uncomfortable that her son should be refused when she considers him
worthy of the Empress herself.”

Helen was very white, as she asked, “And how with Mark and Juno?”

“Oh, there is nothing between them,” Bell replied. “Mark has scarcely
called on us since he returned from Washington with his regiment. You
are certain you never cared for him?”

This was so abrupt, and Bell’s eyes were so searching that Helen grew
giddy for a moment, and grasped the back of the chair, as she replied:
“I did not say I never cared for him. I said he never proposed; and that
is true; he never did.”

“And if he had?” Bell continued, never taking her eyes from Helen, who,
had she been less agitated, would have denied Bell’s right to question
her so closely. Now, however, she answered blindly, “I do not know. I
cannot tell. I thought him engaged to Juno.”

“Well, if that is not the rarest case of cross-purposes that I ever
knew,” Bell said, wiping her hands upon Aunt Betsy’s apron, and
preparing to attack the piled up basket just brought in.

Farther conversation was impossible, and, with her mind in a perfect
tempest of thought, Helen went away, trying to decide what it was best
for her to do. Some one had spread the report that _she_ had refused
Mark Ray, telling of the refusal of course, or how else could it have
been known? and this accounted for Mrs. Banker’s long continued silence.
Since Helen’s return to Silverton Mrs. Banker had written two or three
kind, friendly letters, which did her so much good; but these had
suddenly ceased, and Helen’s last remained unanswered. She saw the
reason now, every nerve quivering with pain as she imagined what Mrs.
Banker must think of one who could make a refusal public, or what was
tenfold worse, pretend to an offer she never received. “She must despise
me, and Mark Ray, too, if he has heard of it,” she said, resolving one
moment to ask Bell to explain to Mrs. Banker, and then changing her mind
and concluding to let matters take their course, inasmuch as
interference from her might be construed by the mother into undue
interest in the son. “Perhaps Bell will do it without my asking,” she
thought, and this hope did much toward keeping her spirits up on that
last day of Katy’s stay at home, for she was going back in the morning.

They did not see Marian Hazelton again, and Katy wondered at it,
deciding that in some things Marian was very peculiar, while Wilford and
Bell were disappointed, as both had a desire to meet and converse with
one who had been so like a second mother to the little dead Genevra.
Wilford spoke of his child now as Genevra, but to Katy it was Baby
still; and, with choking sobs and passionate tears, she bade good-bye to
the little mound underneath which it was lying, and then went back to
New York.




                             CHAPTER XXXII.
                            THE FIRST WIFE.


Katy was very unhappy in her city home, and the world, as she looked
upon it, seemed utterly cheerless. For much of this unhappiness Wilford
was himself to blame. After the first few days, during which he was all
kindness and devotion, he did not try to comfort her, but seemed
irritated that she should mourn so deeply for the child which, but for
her indiscretion, might have been living still. He did not like staying
at home, and their evenings, when they were alone, passed in gloomy
silence. At last Mrs. Cameron brought her influence to bear upon her
daughter-in-law, trying to rouse her to something like her olden
interest in the world; but all to no effect, and matters grew constantly
worse, as Wilford thought Katy unreasonable and selfish, while Katy
tried hard not to think him harsh in his judgment of her, and exacting
in his requirements. “Perhaps she was the one most in fault; it could
not be pleasant for him to see her so entirely changed from what she
used to be,” she thought, one morning late in November, when, her
husband had just left her with an angry frown upon his face and
reproachful words upon his lips.

Father Cameron and his daughters were out of town, and Mrs. Cameron had
asked Wilford and Katy to dine with her. But Katy did not wish to go,
and Wilford had left her in anger, saying “she could suit herself, but
he should go at all events.”

Left alone, Katy began to feel that she had done wrong in declining the
invitation. Surely she could go there, and the echo of the _bang_ with
which Wilford had closed the street door was still vibrating in her ear,
when her resolution began to give way, and while Wilford was riding
moodily down town, thinking harsh things against her, she was meditating
what she thought might be an agreeable surprise. She would go round and
meet him at dinner, trying to appear as much like her old self as she
could, and so atone for anything which had hitherto been wrong in her
demeanor.

Later in the day Esther was sent for to arrange her mistress’s hair, as
she had not arranged it since baby died. Wilford had been annoyed by the
smooth bands combed so plainly back, and at the blackness of the dress,
but now there was a change, and graceful curls fell about the face,
giving it the girlish expression which Wilford liked. The soberness of
the dark dress was relieved by simple folds of white crape at the throat
and wrists, while the handsome jet ornaments, the gift of Wilford’s
father, added to the style and beauty of the childish figure, which had
seldom looked lovelier than when ready and waiting for the carriage. At
the door there was a ring, and Esther brought a note to Katy, who read
as follows:

  DEAR KATY:—I have been suddenly called to leave the city on business,
  which will probably detain me for three days or more, and as I must go
  on the night train, I wish Esther to have my portmanteau ready with
  whatever I may need for the journey. As I proposed this morning, I
  shall dine with mother, but come home immediately after dinner.

                                                             W. CAMERON.

Katy was glad now that she had decided to meet him at his mother’s, as
the knowing she had pleased him would make the time of his absence more
endurable, and after seeing that everything was ready for him she
stepped with a comparatively light heart into her carriage, and was
driven to No.—— Fifth Avenue.

Mrs. Cameron was out, the servant said, but was expected every minute
with Mr. Wilford.

“Never mind,” Katy answered; “I want to surprise them, so please don’t
tell them I am here when you let them in,” and going into the library
she sat down before the grate, waiting rather impatiently until the
door-bell rang and she heard both Wilford’s and Mrs. Cameron’s voices in
the hall.

Contrary to her expectations, they did not come into the library, but
went into the parlor, the door of which was partially ajar, so that
every word they said could be distinctly heard where Katy sat. It would
seem that they were continuing a conversation which had been interrupted
by their arriving home, for Mrs. Cameron said, with the tone she always
assumed when sympathizing with her son. “Is she never more cheerful than
when I have seen her?”

“Never,” and Katy could feel just how Wilford’s lips shut over his teeth
as he said it; “never more cheerful, but worse if anything. Why,
positively the house seems so like a funeral that I hate to leave the
office and go back to it at night, knowing how mopish and gloomy Katy
will be.”

“My poor boy, it is worse than I feared,” Mrs. Cameron said, with a
little sigh, while Katy, with a great gasping sob, tried to rise and go
to them, to tell them she was there—the mopish Katy, who made her home
so like a funeral to her husband.

But her limbs refused to move, and she sank back powerless in her chair,
compelled to listen to things which no true husband would ever say to a
mother of his wife, especially when that wife’s error consisted
principally in mourning for the child “which but for her imprudence
might have been living then.” These were Wilford’s very words, and
though Katy had once expected him to say them, they came upon her now
with a dreadful shock, making her view herself as the murderer of her
child, and thus blunting the pain she might otherwise have felt as he
went on to speak of Silverton and its inhabitants just as he would not
have spoken had he known she was so near. Then, encouraged by his
mother, he talked again of her in a way which made her poor aching heart
throb as she whispered, sadly, “He is disappointed in me. I do not come
up to all that he expected. I do very well, considering my low origin,
but I am not what his wife should be.”

Wilford had not said all this, but Katy inferred it, and every nerve
quivered with anguish as the wild wish came over her that she had died
on that day when she sat in the summer grass at home waiting for Wilford
Cameron. Poor Katy! she thought her cup of sorrow full, when, alas! only
a drop had as yet been poured into it. But it was filling fast, and Mrs.
Cameron’s words, “It might have been better with Genevra,” was the first
outpouring of the overwhelming torrent which for a moment bore her life
and sense away. She thought they meant her baby—the little Genevra
sleeping under the snow in Silverton—and her white lips answered, “Yes,
it would be better,” before Wilford’s voice was heard, saying, as he
always said, “No, I have never wished Genevra in Katy’s place; though I
have sometimes wondered what the result would have been had I learned in
season how much I wronged her.”

Was heaven and earth coming together, or what made Katy’s brain so dizzy
and the room so dark, as, with head bent forward and lips apart, she
strained her ear to catch every word of the conversation which followed,
and in which she saw glimpses of that _leaf_ offered her once to read,
and from which she had promised not to shrink should it ever be thrust
upon her? But she did shrink, oh! so shudderingly, holding up her hands
and striking them through the empty air as if she would thrust aside the
terrible spectre risen so suddenly before her. She had heard all that
she cared to hear then. Another word and she should surely die where she
was, within hearing of the voices still talking of _Genevra_. Stopping
her ears to shut out the dreadful sound, she tried to think what she
should do. To gain the door and reach the street was her desire, and
throwing on her wrappings she went noiselessly into the hall, and
carefully turning the lock and closing the door behind her, she found
herself alone in the street in the dusk of a November night. But Katy
was not afraid, and drawing her hood closely over her face she sped on
until her own house was reached, alarming Esther with her frightened
face, but explaining that she had been taken suddenly ill and returned
before dinner

“Mr. Cameron will be here soon,” she said. “I do not need anything
to-night, so you can leave me alone and go where you like—to the
theatre, if you choose. I heard you say you wished to go. Here is the
money for you and Phillips,” and handing a bill to the puzzled Esther,
she dismissed her from the room.

Meanwhile, at the elder Cameron’s, no one had a suspicion of Katy’s
recent presence, for the girl who had admitted her had gone to visit a
sick sister, with whom she was to spend the night. Thus Katy’s secret
was safe, and Wilford, when at last he bade his mother good-bye and
started for home, was not prepared for the livid face, the bloodshot
eyes, and the strange, unnatural look which met him at the threshold.

Katy answered his ring herself, her hands grasping his fiercely,
dragging him up the stairs to her own room, where, more like a maniac
than Katy Cameron, she confronted him with the startling question,

“Who is _Genevra Lambert_? It is time I knew before committing greater
sin. Tell me, Wilford, who _is_ she?”

She was standing before him, her slight figure seeming to expand into a
greater height, the features glowing with strong excitement, and her hot
breath coming hurriedly through her dilated nostrils, but never opening
the pale lips set so firmly together. There was something terrible in
her look and attitude, and it startled Wilford, who recoiled a moment
from her, scarcely able to recognize the Katy hitherto so gentle and
quiet. She had learned his secret, but the facts must have been
distorted, he knew, or she had never been so agitated. From beneath his
hair the great sweat-drops came pouring, as he tried to approach her and
take the uplifted hands, motioning him aside with the words, “Not touch
me; no, not touch me till you have told me _who_ is _Genevra Lambert_.”

She repeated the question twice, and rallying all his strength Wilford
answered her at last, “_Genevra Lambert was my wife!_”

“I thought so,” and the next moment Katy lay in Wilford’s arms, dead, as
he feared, for there was no motion about the eyelids, no motion that he
could perceive about the pulse or heart, as he laid the rigid form upon
the bed and then bent every energy to restore her, even though he feared
that it was hopeless.

If possible he would prefer that no one should intrude upon them now,
and he chafed her icy hands and bathed her face until the eyes unclosed
again, but with a shudder turned away as they met his. Then, as she grew
stronger and remembered the past, she started up, exclaiming, “If
Genevra Lambert is your wife, what then _am I_? Oh, Wilford, how could
you make me _not_ a wife, when I trusted and loved you so much?”

He knew she was laboring under a mistake, and he did not wonder at the
violence of her emotions if she believed he had wronged her so cruelly,
and coming nearer to her he said, “Genevra Lambert _was_ my wife once,
but is not now, for she is dead. Do you hear me, Katy? Genevra died
years ago, when you were a little girl playing in the fields at home.”

By mentioning Silverton, he hoped to bring back something of her olden
look, in place of the expression which troubled and frightened him. The
experiment was successful, and great tears gathered in Katy’s eyes,
washing out the wild, unnatural gleam, while the lips whispered, “And it
was her picture Juno saw. She told me the night I came, and I tried to
question you. You remember?”

Wilford did remember it, and he replied, “Yes, but I did not suppose you
knew I had a picture. You have been a good wife, Katy, never to mention
it since then;” and he tried to kiss her forehead, but she covered it
with her hands, saying sadly, “Not yet, Wilford, I cannot bear it now. I
must know the whole about Genevra. Why didn’t you tell me before? Why
have you deceived me so?”

“Katy,” and Wilford grew very earnest in his attempts to defend himself,
“do you remember that day we sat under the buttonwood tree, and you
promised to be mine? Try and recall the incidents of that hour and see
if I did not hint at some things in the past which I wished had been
otherwise, and did not offer to show you the blackest page of my whole
life, but you would not see it. Was that so, Katy?”

“Yes,” she answered, and he continued: “You said you were satisfied to
take me as I was. You would not hear evil against me, and so I
acquiesced, bidding you not shrink back if ever the time should come
when you must read that page. I was to blame, I know, but there were
many extenuating circumstances, much to excuse me for withholding what
you would not hear.”

Wilford did not like to be censured, neither did he like to censure
himself, and now that Katy was out of danger and comparatively calm, he
began to build about himself a fortress of excuses for having kept from
her the secret of his life.

“When did you hear of Genevra?” he asked.

Katy told him when and how she heard the story, and then added, “Oh,
Wilford, why did you keep it from me? What was there about it wrong, and
where is she buried?”

“In Alnwick, at St. Mary’s,” Wilford answered, determining now to hold
nothing back, and by his abruptness wounding Katy afresh.

“In Alnwick, at St. Mary’s,” Katy cried. “Then I have seen her grave,
and that is why you were so anxious to get there—so unwilling to go
away. Oh, if I were lying there instead of Genevra, it would be so much
better, so much better.”

Katy was sobbing now, in a moaning, plaintive way, which touched Wilford
tenderly, and smoothing her tangled hair, he said, “I would not exchange
my Katy for all the Genevras in the world. She was never as dear to me
as you. I was but a boy, and did not know my mind, when I met her. Shall
I tell you about her now? Can you bear to hear the story of Genevra?”

There was a nod of assent, and Katy turned her face to the wall,
clasping her hands tightly together, while Wilford drew his chair to her
side and began to read the page he should have read to her long before.




                            CHAPTER XXXIII.
                        WHAT THE PAGE DISCLOSED.


I was little more than nineteen years of age when I left Harvard College
and went abroad with my only brother, the John or Jack of whom you have
so often heard. Both himself and wife were in delicate health, and it
was hoped a voyage across the sea would do them good. For nearly a year
we were in various parts of England, stopping for two months at
Brighton, where, among the visitors, was a widow from the vicinity of
Alnwick, and with her an orphan niece, whose dazzling beauty attracted
my youthful fancy. She was not happy with her aunt, upon whom she was
wholly dependent, and my sympathies were all enlisted, when, with the
tears shining in her lustrous eyes, she one day accidentally stumbled
upon her trouble and told me how wretched she was, asking if in America
there was not something for her to do.

“It was at this time that Jamie was born, and Mary, the girl who went
out with us, was married to an Englishman, making it necessary for Hatty
to find some one to take her place. Hearing of this, Genevra came one
day, and offered herself as half companion, half waiting-maid to Hatty.
Anything was preferable to the life she led, she said, pleading so hard
that Hatty, after an interview with the old aunt—a purse-proud, vulgar
woman, who seemed glad to be rid of her charge—consented to receive her,
and Genevra became one of our family, an equal rather than a menial,
whom Hatty treated with as much consideration as if she had been a
sister. I wish I could tell you how beautiful Genevra Lambert was at
that period of her life, with her brilliant English complexion, her eyes
so full of poetry and passion, her perfect features, and, more than all,
the wondrous smile, which would have made a plain face handsome.

“Of course I came to love her, and loved her all the more for the
opposition I knew my family would throw in the way of my marrying the
daughter of an English apothecary, and one who was voluntarily filling a
servant’s place. But with my mother across the sea, I could do anything;
and when Genevra told me of a base fellow, who, since she was a child,
had sought her for his wife, and still pursued her with his letters, my
passions were roused, and I offered myself at once. Her answer was a
decided refusal. She knew _her_ position, she said, and she knew mine,
just as she knew the nature of the feeling which prompted me to act thus
toward her. Although just my age, she was older in judgment and
experience, and she seemed to understand the difference between our
relative positions. I was not indifferent to her, she said, and were she
my equal her answer might be otherwise than the decided no.

“Madly in love, and fancying I could not live without her, I besieged
her with letters, some of which she returned unopened, while on others
she wrote a few hurried lines, calling me a boy, who did not know my own
mind, and asking what my friends would say.

“I cared little for friends, and urged my suit the more vehemently, as
we were about going into Scotland, where our marriage could be
celebrated in private at any time. I did not contemplate making the
affair public at once. That would take from the interest and romance,
while, unknown to myself, there was at heart a fear of my family.

“But not to dwell too long upon those days, which seem to me now like a
dream, we went to Scotland and were married privately, for I won her to
this at last.

“My brother’s failing health, as well as Hatty’s, prevented them from
suspecting what was going on, and when at last we went to Italy they had
no idea that Genevra was my wife. At Rome her beautiful face attracted
much attention from tourists and residents, among whom were a few young
men, who, looking upon her as Jamie’s nurse, or at most a companion for
his mother, made no attempt to disguise their admiration. For this I had
no redress except in an open avowal of the relation in which I stood to
her, and this I could not then do, for the longer it was deferred the
harder I found it to acknowledge her my wife. I loved her devotedly, and
that perhaps was one great cause of the jealousy which began to spring
up and embitter my life.

“I do not now believe that Genevra was at heart a coquette. She was very
fond of admiration, but when she saw how much I was disturbed she made
an effort to avoid those who flattered her, but her manner was
unfortunate, while her voice—the sweetest I ever heard—was calculated to
invite rather than repel attention. As the empress of the world, she
would have won and kept the homage of mankind, from the humblest beggar
in the street to the king upon the throne, and had I been older I should
have been proud of what then was my greatest annoyance. But I was a mere
boy—and I watched her jealously, until a new element of disquiet was
presented to me in the shape of a ruffianly looking fellow, who was
frequently seen about the premises, and with whom I once found Genevra
in close converse, starting and blushing guiltily when I came upon her,
while her companion went swiftly from my sight.

“It was an old English acquaintance, who was poor and asking charity,”
she said, when questioned, but her manner led me to think there was
something wrong, particularly as I saw her with him again, and thought
she held his hand.

“It was evident that my brother would never see America again, and at
his request my mother came to us, in company with a family from Boston,
reaching us two weeks before he died. From the first she disliked
Genevra, and suspected the liking between us, but never dreaming of the
truth until a week after Jack’s death, when in a fit of anger at Genevra
for listening to an English artist, who had asked to paint her picture,
the story of the marriage came out, and like a child dependent on its
mother for advice, I asked, ‘What shall I do??

“You know mother, and can in part understand how she would scorn a girl
who, though born to better things, was still found in the capacity of a
waiting-maid. I never saw her so moved as she was for a time, after
learning that her only living son, from whom she expected so much, had
thrown himself away, as she expressed it. Sister Hatty, who loved
Genevra, did all she could to heal the growing difference between us,
but I trusted mother most. I believed that what she said was right, and
so matters grew worse, until one night, the last we spent in Rome, I
missed Genevra from our rooms, and starting in quest of her, found her,
in a little flower garden back of our dwelling. There, under the deep
shadow of a tree, and partly concealed from view, she stood with her arm
around the neck of the same rough-looking man who had been there before.
She did not see me as I watched her while she parted with him, suffering
him to kiss her hand and forehead as he said, “Good-bye, my darling.”

“In a tremor of anger and excitement I quitted the spot, my mind wholly
made up with regard to my future. That there was something wrong about
Genevra I did not doubt, and I would not give her a chance to explain by
telling her what I had seen, but sent her back to England, giving her
ample means for defraying the expenses of her journey and for living in
comfort after her arrival there. From Rome we went to Naples, and then
to Switzerland, where Hatty died, leaving us alone with little Jamie. It
was at Berne that I received an anonymous letter from England, the
writer stating that Genevra was with her aunt, that the whole had ended
as he thought it would, that he could readily guess at the nature of the
trouble, and hinting that if a _divorce_ was desirable on my return to
England, all necessary proof could be obtained by applying to such a
number in London, the writer announcing himself a brother of the man who
had once sought Genevra, and saying he had always opposed the match,
knowing Genevra’s family.

“This was the first time the idea of a _divorce_ had entered my mind,
and I shrank from a final separation. But mother felt differently. It
was not a new thought to her, knowing as she did that the validity of a
Scotch marriage, such as ours, was frequently contested in the English
Courts. Once free from Genevra the world this side the water would never
know of that mistake, and she set herself steadily to accomplish her
purpose. To tell you all that followed our return to England, and the
steps by which I was brought to sue for a divorce, would make my story
too long, and so I will only state that, chiefly by the testimony of the
anonymous letter-writer, whose acquaintance we made, a divorce was
obtained, Genevra putting in no defence, but, as I heard afterwards,
settling down into an apathy from which nothing had power to rouse her
until the news of her freedom from me was carried to her, when, amid a
paroxysm of tears and sobs, she wrote me a few lines, assuring me of her
innocence, refusing to send back her wedding ring, and saying God would
not forgive me for the great wrong I had done her. I saw her once after
that by appointment, and her face haunted me for years, for, Katy,
_Genevra was innocent_, as I found after the time was past when
reparation could be made.”

Wilford’s voice trembled, and for a moment there was silence in the
room, while he composed himself to go on with the story:

“She would not live with me again if she could, she said, denouncing
bitterly the Cameron pride, and saying she was happier to be free; and
there we parted, but not until she told me that her traducer was the old
discarded suitor who had sworn to have revenge, and who, since the
divorce, had dared seek her again. A vague suspicion of this had crossed
my mind once before, but the die was cast, and even if the man were
false, what I saw myself in Rome still stood against her, and so my
conscience was quieted, while mother was more than glad to be rid of a
daughter-in-law of whose family I knew nothing. Rumors I did hear of a
cousin whose character was not the best, and of the father who for some
crime had fled the country, and died in a foreign land, but as that was
nothing to me now, I passed it by, feeling it was best to be released
from one of so doubtful antecedents.

“In the spring of 185— we came back to New York, where no one had ever
heard of the affair, so quietly had it been managed. I was still an
unmarried man to the world, as no one but my mother knew my secret. With
her I often talked of Genevra, wishing sometimes that I could hear from
her, a wish which was finally gratified. One day I received a note
requesting an interview at a down town hotel, the writer signing himself
as Thomas Lambert, and adding that I need have no fears, as he came to
perform an act of justice, not of retribution. Three hours later I was
locked in a room with Genevra’s father, the same man whom I had seen in
Rome. Detected in forgery years before, he had fled from England and had
hidden himself in Rome, where he accidentally met his daughter, and so
that stain was removed. He had heard of the divorce by a letter which
Genevra managed to send him, and braving all difficulties and dangers he
had come back to England and found his child, hearing from her the story
of her wrongs, and as well as he was able setting himself to discover
the author of the calumny. He was not long in tracing it to _Le Roy_,
Genevra’s former suitor, whom he found in a dying condition, and who
with his last breath confessed the falsehood which was imposed upon me,
he said, partly from motives of revenge, and partly, with a hope that
free from me, Genevra would at the last turn to him. As proof that Mr.
Lambert told me truth, he brought the dying man’s confession, written in
a cramped, trembling hand, which I recognized at once. The confession
ended with the solemn assertion, ‘For aught I know or believe, Genevra
Lambert is as pure and true as any woman living.’

“I cannot describe the effect this had upon me. I did not love Genevra
then. I had out-lived that affection, but I felt remorse and pity for
having wronged her, and asked how I could make amends.

“‘You cannot,’ the old man said, ‘except in one way, and that she does
not desire. I did not come here with any wish for you to take her for
your wife again. It was an unequal match which never should have been;
but if you believe her innocent, she will be satisfied. She wanted you
to know it—I wanted you to know it, and so I crossed the sea to find
you.’”

“The next I heard of her was in the columns of an English newspaper,
which told me she was dead, while in another place a pencil mark was
lightly traced around a paragraph, which said that ‘a forger, Thomas
Lambert, who escaped years ago and was supposed to be dead, had recently
reappeared in England, where he was recognized, but not arrested, for
the illness which proved fatal. He was attended,’ the paper said, ‘by
his daughter, a beautiful young girl, whose modest mien and gentle
manner had done much towards keeping the officers of justice from her
dying father, no one being able to withstand her pleadings that her
father might die in peace.’

“I was grateful for this tribute to Genevra, for I felt that it was
deserved; and I turned again to the notice of her death, which must have
occurred within a short time of her father’s, and was probably induced
by past troubles and recent anxiety for him.

“Genevra Lambert died at Alnwick, aged 22. There could be no mistake,
and with a tear to the memory of the dead whom I had loved and injured,
I burned the paper, feeling that now there was no clue to the secret I
was as anxious to preserve as was my mother.

“And so the years wore on till I met and married you, withholding from
you that yours was not the first love which had stirred my heart. I
meant to tell you, Katy, but I could not for the great fear of losing
you if you knew all. And then an error concealed so long is hard to be
confessed. I took you across the sea to Brighton, where I first met
Genevra, and then to Alnwick, seeking out the grave which made assurance
doubly sure. It was natural that I should make some inquiries concerning
her last days; I questioned the old sexton who was at work near by.
Calling his attention to the name, I said it was an uncommon one and
asked if he knew the girl.

“‘Not by sight, no,’ he said. ‘She was only here a few days before she
died. I’ve heard she was very winsome and that there was a scandal of
some kind mixed up with her.’

“I would not ask him any more; and without any wrong to you, I confess
that my tears dropped upon the turf under which I knew Genevra lay.”

“I am glad they did; I should hate you if you had not cried,” Katy
exclaimed, her voice more natural than it had been since the great shock
came.

“Do you forgive me, Katy? Do you love me as well as ever?” Wilford
asked, stooping down to kiss her, but Katy drew her face away and would
not answer then.

She did not know herself how she felt towards him. He did not seem just
like the husband she had trusted in so blindly. It would take a long
time to forget that another head than hers had lain upon his bosom, and
it would take longer yet to blot out the memory of complaining words
uttered to his mother. She had never thought he could do that, never
dreamed of such a thing, knowing that she would sooner have parted with
her right hand than complained of him. Her idol had fallen in more
respects than one, and the heart it had bruised in the fall refused at
once to gather the shattered pieces up and call them as good as new. She
was not so obstinate as Wilford began to fancy. She was only stunned and
could not rally at his bidding. He confessed the whole, keeping nothing
back, and he felt that Katy was unjust not to acknowledge his
magnanimity and restore him to her favor. Again he asked forgiveness,
and bent down to kiss her, but Katy answered, “Not yet, Wilford, not
till I feel all right towards you. A wife’s kiss should be sincere.”

“As you like,” trembled on Wilford’s lips, but he beat back the words
and walked up and down the room, knowing now that his journey must be
deferred till morning, and wondering if Katy would hold out till then.

It was long past midnight, but to retire was impossible, and so for one
whole hour he paced through the room, while Katy lay with her eyes
closed and her lips moving occasionally in words of prayer she tried to
say, asking God to help her, and praying that she might in future lay
her treasures up where they could not so suddenly be swept away. Wearily
the hours passed, and the gray dawn was stealing into the room when
Wilford again approached his wife and said, “You know I was to have left
home last night on business. As I did not go then it is necessary that I
leave this morning. Are you able to stay alone for three days more? Are
you willing?”

“Yes—oh yes,” Katy replied, feeling that to have him gone while she
battled with the pain lying so heavy at her heart, would be a great
relief.

Perhaps he suspected this feeling in part, for he bit his lip
impatiently, and without another word called up the servant whose duty
it was to prepare his breakfast. Cold and cheerless seemed the
dining-room, to which an hour later he repaired, and tasteless was the
breakfast without Katy there to share it. She had been absent many times
before, but never just as now, with this wide gulf between them, and as
he broke his egg and tried to drink his coffee, Wilford felt like one
from whom every support had been swept away. He did not like the look on
Katy’s face or the sound of her voice, and as he thought upon them, self
began to whisper again that she had no right to stand out so long when
he had confessed everything, and by the time his breakfast was finished,
Wilford Cameron was, in his own estimation, an abused and injured man,
so that it was with an air of defiance rather than humility that he went
again to Katy. She, too, had been thinking, and as the result of her
thoughts she lifted up her head as he came in and said, “I can kiss you
now, Wilford.”

It was human nature, we suppose—at least it was Wilford’s nature—which
for an instant tempted him to decline the kiss proffered so lovingly;
but Katy’s face was more than he could withstand, and when again he left
that room the kiss of pardon was upon his lips and comparative quiet was
in his heart.

“The picture, Wilford,—please bring me the picture, I want to see it,”
Katy called after him, as he was running down the stairs.

Wilford would not refuse, and hastily unlocking his private drawer he
carried the case to Katy’s room, saying to her, “I would not mind it
now. Try and sleep awhile. You need the rest so much.”

Katy knew she had the whole day before her, and so she nestled down
among her pillows and soon fell into a quiet sleep, from which Esther at
last awakened her, asking if she should bring her breakfast to her room.

“Yes, do,” Katy replied, adjusting her dress and trying to arrange the
matted curls, which were finally confined in a net until Esther’s more
practiced hands were ready to attack them, then sending Esther from the
room Katy took the picture of Genevra from the table where Wilford had
laid it.




                             CHAPTER XXXIV.
                              THE EFFECT.


Very cautiously the lid was opened, and a lock of soft brown hair fell
out, clinging to Katy’s hand and making her shudder as she shook off the
silken tress and remembered that the head it once adorned was lying in
St. Mary’s churchyard, where the English daisies grew.

“She had pretty hair,” she thought; “darker, richer than mine,” and into
Katy’s heart there crept a feeling akin to jealousy, lest Genevra had
been fairer than herself, as well as better loved. “I won’t be foolish
any longer,” she said, and turning resolutely to the light, she opened
the lid again and saw Genevra Lambert, starting quickly, then looking
again more closely—then, with a gasp, panting for breath; while like
lightning flashes the past came rushing over her, as, with her eyes
fixed upon that picture, she tried to whisper, “_It is—it is!_”

She could not then say whom, for if she were right in her belief,
Genevra was not dead. There were no daisies growing on her grave, for
she still walked the earth a living woman, whom Katy knew so
well—_Marian Hazelton_. That was the name Katy could not speak, as, with
the blood curdling in her veins and freezing about her heart, she sat
comparing the face she remembered so well with the one before her. In
some points they were unlike, for thirteen years had slightly marred the
youthful contour of the face she knew once—had sharpened the features
and thinned the abundant hair; but still there could be no mistake. The
eyes, the brow, the smile, the nose, all were the same, and with a pang
bitterer than she yet had felt, poor Katy fell upon her face and asked
that she might die. In her utter ignorance of law, she fancied that if
Genevra were alive, she had no right to Wilford’s name—no right to be
his wife—especially as the sin for which Genevra was divorced had by her
never been committed, and burning tears of bitter shame ran down her
cheeks as she whispered, “‘What God has joined together let no man put
asunder,’ Those are God’s words, and how dare the world act otherwise?
she _is_ his wife, and I—oh! I don’t know what I am!” and on the carpet
where she was kneeling Katy writhed in agony as she tried to think what
she must do. Not stay there—she could not do that now—not, at least,
until she knew for sure that she was Wilford’s wife, in spite of
Genevra’s living. “Oh, if there was only some one to advise me—some one
who knew and would tell me what was right,” Katy moaned, feeling herself
inadequate to meet the dark hour alone.

But to whom should she go? To Father Cameron? No, nor to his mother.
They might counsel wrong for the sake of secrecy. Would Mark Ray or Mrs.
Banker know? Perhaps; but they were strangers;—her trouble must not be
told to them, and then with a great bound her heart turned at last to
_Morris_. He knew everything. He would not sanction a wrong. He would
tell her just what was right, and she could trust him fully in
everything. There was no other person whom she could believe just as she
could him. Uncle Ephraim was equally as good and conscientious, but he
did not know as much as Morris—he did not understand everything. Morris
was her refuge, and to him she would go that very day, leaving a note
for Wilford in case she never came back, as possibly she might not. Had
Marian been in the city she would have gone to her at once, but Marian
was where long rows of cots were ranged against the hospital walls, each
holding a maimed and suffering soldier, to whom she ministered so
tenderly, the brightness of her smile and the beauty of her face
deluding the delirious ones into the belief that the journey of life for
them was ended and heaven reached at last, where an angel in woman’s
garb attended upon them. Marian was impossible, and Dr. Grant was the
only alternative left.

But when she attempted to prepare for the journey to Silverton, she
found herself wholly inadequate to the exertion. The terrible excitement
through which she had passed had exhausted her strength, and every nerve
was quivering, while spasms of pain darted through her head, warning her
that Silverton was impossible. “I can telegraph and Morris will come,”
she whispered, and without pausing to think what the act might involve,
she wrote upon a slip of paper, “Cousin Morris, come to me in the next
train. I am in great trouble, Katy.”

She would not add the Cameron. She had no right to that name, she
feared, and folding the paper, she rang for Esther, bidding her give the
telegram to the boy Phil, with instructions to take it at once to the
office and see that it went immediately.




                             CHAPTER XXXV.
                             THE INTERVIEW.


Dr. Morris was very tired, for his labors that day had been unusually
severe, and it was with a feeling of comfort and relief that at an
earlier hour than usual, he had turned his steps homeward, finding a
bright fire waiting him in the library, where his late dinner was soon
brought by the housekeeper. It was very pleasant in that cosy library of
oak and green, with the bright fire on the hearth, and the smoking
dinner set so temptingly before him. And Morris felt the comfort of his
home, thanking the God who had given him all this, and chiding his
wayward heart that it had ever dared to repine. He was not repining
to-night, as with his hands crossed upon his head he sat looking into
the fire and watching the bits of glowing anthracite dropping into the
pan. He was thinking of the sick-bed which he had visited last, and how
a faith in Jesus can make the humblest room like the gate of Heaven;
thinking how the woman’s eyes had sparkled when she told him of the
other world, where she would never know pain or hunger or cold again,
and how quickly their lustre was dimmed when she spoke of her absent
husband, the soldier to whom the news of her death, with the child he
had never seen, would be a crushing blow.

“They who have neither wife nor child are the happier perhaps,” he said;
and then he thought of Katy and her great sorrow when baby died,
wondering if to spare herself that pain she would rather baby had never
been. “No—oh, no,” he answered to his own inquiry. “She would not lose
the memory which comes from that little grave for all the world
contains. It is better once to love and lose than not to love at all. In
Heaven we shall see and know why these things were permitted, and marvel
at the poor human nature which rebelled against them.”

Just at this point of his soliloquy, the telegram was brought to him.
“Come in the next train. I am in great trouble.”

He read it many times, growing more and more perplexed with each
reading, and then trying to decide what his better course would be.
There were no patients needing him that night, that he knew of; he might
perhaps go if there was yet time for the train which passed at four
o’clock. There was time, he found, and telling Mrs. Hull that he had
been suddenly called to New York, he bade his boy bring out his horse
and take him at once to the depot. It was better to leave no message for
the deacon’s family, as he did not wish to alarm them unnecessarily. “I
shall undoubtedly be back to-morrow,” he thought, as he took his seat in
the car, wondering what could be the trouble which had prompted that
strange despatch.

It was nearly midnight when he reached the city, but a light was shining
from the windows of that house in Madison Square, and Katy, who had
never for a moment doubted his coming, was waiting for him. But not in
the parlor; she was too sick now to go down there, and when she heard
his ring and his voice in the hall asking for her, she bade Esther show
him to her room. More and more perplexed, Morris ran up to the room
where Katy lay, or rather crouched, upon the sofa, her eyes so wild and
her face so white that, in great alarm, Morris took the cold hands she
stretched feebly towards him, and bending over her said, “What is it,
Katy? Has anything dreadful happened? and where is your husband?”

At the mention of her husband Katy shivered, and rising from her
crouching position, she pushed her hair back from her forehead and
replied, “Oh, Morris! I am so wretched,—so full of pain! I have heard of
something which took my life away. I am _not_ Wilford’s wife, for he had
another before me,—a wife in Italy,—who is not dead! And _I_, oh Morris!
what _am_ I? I knew you would know just what I was, and I sent for you
to tell me and take me away from here, back to Silverton. Help me,
Morris! I am choking! I am—yes—I am—going to faint!”

It was the first time Katy had put the great horror in words addressed
to another, and the act of doing so made it more appalling, and with a
moan she sank back among the pillows of the couch, while Morris tried to
comprehend the strange words he had heard, “I am not Wilford’s wife, for
he had another before me,—a wife in Italy,—who is not dead.”

Dr. Morris was thoroughly a man, and though much of his sinful nature
had been subdued, there was enough left to make his heart rise and fall
with great throbs of joy as he thought of Katy _free_, even though that
freedom were bought at the expense of dire disgrace to others, and of
misery to her. But only for a moment did he feel thus—only till he knelt
beside the pallid face with the dark rings beneath the eyes, and saw the
faint, quivering motion around the lips, which told that she was not
wholly unconscious.

“My poor little wounded bird,” he said, as pityingly as if he had been
her father, while much as a father might kiss his suffering child, he
kissed the forehead and the eyelids where the tears began to gather.

Katy was not insensible, and the name by which he called her, with the
kisses that he gave, thawed the ice around her heart and brought a flood
of tears, which Morris wiped away, lifting her gently up and pillowing
her hot head upon his arm, while she moaned like a weary child.

“It rests me so just to see you, Morris. May I go back with you, as your
housekeeper, instead of Mrs. Hull;—that is, if I am not his wife? The
world might despise me, but you would know I was not to blame. I should
go nowhere but to the farm-house, to church, and baby’s grave. Poor
baby! I am glad God gave her to me, even if I am not Wilford’s wife; and
I am glad now that she died.”

She was talking to herself rather than to Morris, who, smoothing back
her hair and chafing her cold hands, said,

“My poor child, you have passed through some agitating scene. Are you
able now to tell me all about it, and what you mean by another wife?”

There was a shiver, and the white lips grew still whiter as Katy began
her story, going back to St. Mary’s churchyard and then coming to her
first night in New York, when Juno had told her of a picture and asked
her whose it was. Then she told of Wilford’s admission of an earlier
love, who, he said, was dead; of the trouble about the baby’s name, and
his aversion to Genevra; but when she approached the dinner at the elder
Cameron’s, her lip quivered in a grieved kind of way as she remembered
what Wilford had said of _her_ to his mother, but she would not tell
this to Morris,—it was not necessary to her story,—and so she said,
“They were talking of what I ought never to have heard, and it seemed as
if the walls were closing me in so I could not move to let them know I
was there. I said to myself, ‘I shall go mad after this,’ and I thought
of you all coming to see me in the mad-house, your kind face, Morris,
coming up distinctly before me, just as it would look at me if I were
really crazed. But all this was swept away like a hurricane when I heard
the rest, the part about _Genevra_, Wilford’s other wife.”

Katy was panting for breath, but she went on with the story, which made
Morris clench his hands as he comprehended the deceit which had been
practiced so long. Of course he did not look at it as Katy did, for he
knew that according to all civil law she was as really Wilford’s wife as
if no other had existed, and he told her so, but Katy shook her head.
“He can’t have two wives living. And I tell you I knew the
picture—_Genevra is not dead_, I have seen her; I have talked with
her,—Genevra is not dead.”

“Granted that she is not,” Morris answered, “the divorce remains the
same.”

“I do not believe in divorces. Whom God hath joined together let not man
put asunder,” Katy said with an air which implied that from this
argument there could be no appeal.

“That is the Scripture, I know,” Morris replied, “but you must know that
for one sin our Saviour permitted a man to put away his wife, thus
making it perfectly right.”

“But in Genevra’s case the sin did not exist. She was as innocent as I
am, and that must make a difference.”

She was very earnest in her attempts to prove that Genevra was still a
lawful wife, so earnest that a dark suspicion entered Morris’s mind,
finding vent in the question, “Katy, don’t you love your husband, that
you try so hard to prove he is not yours?”

There were red spots all over Katy’s face and neck as she saw the
meaning put upon her actions, and, covering her face with her hands, she
sobbed violently as she replied, “I do, oh, yes, I do! I never loved any
one else. I would have died for him once. Maybe I would die for him now;
but, Morris, he is disappointed in me. Our tastes are not alike, and we
made a great mistake, or Wilford did when he took me for his wife. I was
better suited to most anybody else, and I have been so wicked since,
forgetting all the good I ever knew, forgetting prayer save as I went
through the form from old habit’s sake; forgetting God, who has punished
me so sorely that every nerve smarts with the stinging blows.”

Oh, how lovingly, how earnestly Morris talked to Katy then, telling her
of Him who smites but to heal, who chastens not in anger, and would lead
the lost one back into the quiet fold where there was perfect peace.

And Katy, listening eagerly, with her great blue eyes fixed upon his
face, felt that to experience that of which he talked, was worth more
than all the world beside. Gradually, too, there stole over her the
_rest_ she always felt with him—the indescribable feeling which prompted
her to care for nothing except to do just what he bade her do, knowing
it was right; so when he said to her, “You cannot go home with me, Katy;
your duty is to remain here in your husband’s house,” she offered no
remonstrance. Indeed, Morris doubted if she fully understood him, she
looked so sick and appeared so strange.

“It is not safe for you to be alone. Esther must stay with you,” he
continued, feeling her rapid pulse and noticing the alternate flushing
and paling of her cheek.

A fever was coming on, he feared, and summoning Esther to the room, he
said,

“Your mistress is very sick. You must stay with her till morning, and if
she grows worse, let me know. I shall be in the library.”

Then, with a few directions with regard to the medicine he fortunately
had with him, he left the chamber, and repaired to the library below,
where he spent the few remaining hours of the night, pondering on the
strange story he had heard, and praying for poor Katy whose heart had
been so sorely wounded.

The quick-witted Esther saw that something was wrong, and traced it
readily to Wilford, whose exacting nature she thoroughly understood. She
had not been blind during the two years and a half she had been Katy’s
maid, and no impatient word of Wilford’s, or frown upon his face, had
escaped her when occurring in her presence, while Katy’s uniform
sweetness and entire submission to his will had been noted as well, so
that in Esther’s opinion Wilford was a domestic tyrant, and Katy was an
angel. Numerous were her conjectures as to the cause of the present
trouble, which must be something serious, or Katy had never telegraphed
for Dr. Grant, as she felt certain she had.

“Whatever it is, I’ll stand her friend,” she said, as she bent over her
young mistress, who was talking of Genevra and the grave at St. Mary’s,
which was no grave at all.

She was growing worse very rapidly, and frightened at last at the
wildness of her eyes, and her constant ravings, Esther went down to
Morris, and bade him come quickly to Mrs. Cameron.

“She is taken out of her head, and talks so queer and raving.”

Morris had expected this, but he was not prepared to find the fever so
high, or the symptoms so alarming.

“Shall I send for Mrs. Cameron and another doctor, please?” Esther
asked.

Morris had faith in himself, and he would rather no other hand should
minister to Katy; but he knew he could not stay there long, for there
were those at home who needed his services. Added to this, her family
physician might know her constitution, now, better than he knew it, and
so he answered that it would be well to send for both the doctor and
Mrs. Cameron.

It was just daylight when Mrs. Cameron arrived, questioning Esther
closely, and appearing much surprised when she heard of Dr. Grant’s
presence in the house. That he came by chance, she never doubted, and as
Esther merely answered the questions put directly to her, Mrs. Cameron
had no suspicion of the telegram.

“I am glad he happened here at this time,” she said. “I have the utmost
confidence in his skill. Still it may be well for Dr. Craig to see her.
I think that is his ring.”

The city and country physicians agreed exactly with regard to Katy’s
illness, or rather the city physician bowed in acquiescence when Morris
said to him that the fever raging so high had, perhaps, been induced by
natural causes, but was greatly aggravated by some sudden shock to the
nervous system. This was before Mrs. Cameron came up, but it was
repeated in her presence by Dr. Craig, who thus left the impression that
the idea had originated with himself, rather than with Dr. Grant, as
perhaps he thought it had. He was at first inclined to patronize the
country doctor, but soon found that he had reckoned without his host.
Morris knew more of Katy, and quite as much of medicine as he did
himself, and when Mrs. Cameron begged him to stay longer, he answered
that her son’s wife was as safe in his brother physician’s hands as she
could be in his.

Mrs. Cameron was very glad that Dr. Grant was there, she said. It was
surely Providence who sent him to New York on that particular day, and
Morris shivered as he wondered if it were wrong not to explain the whole
to her.

“Perhaps it is best she should not know of the telegram,” he thought,
and merely bowing to her remarks, he turned to Katy, who was growing
very restless and moaning as if in pain.

“It hurts,” she said, turning her head from side to side; “I am lying on
Genevra.”

With a sudden start, Mrs. Cameron drew nearer, but when she remembered
the little grave at Silverton, she said, “It’s the baby she’s talking
about.”

Morris knew better, and as Katy still continued to move her head as if
something were really hurting her, he passed his hand under her pillow
and drew out the picture she must have kept near her as long as her
consciousness remained. He knew it was Genevra’s picture, and was about
to lay it away, when the cover dropped into his hand, and his eye fell
upon a face which was not new to him, while an involuntary exclamation
of surprise escaped him, as Katy’s assertion that Genevra was living was
thus fully confirmed. Marian had not changed past recognition since her
early girlhood, and Morris knew the likeness at once, pitying Katy more
than he had pitied her yet, as he remembered how closely Marian Hazelton
had been interwoven with her married life, and the life of the little
child which had borne her name.

“What is that?” Mrs. Cameron asked, and Morris passed the case to her,
saying, “A picture which was under Katy’s pillow.”

Morris did not look at Mrs. Cameron, but tried to busy himself with the
medicines upon the stand, while she too recognized Genevra Lambert,
wondering how it came in Katy’s possession and how much she knew of
Wilford’s secret.

“She must have been rummaging,” she thought, and then as she remembered
what Esther had said about her mistress appearing sick and unhappy, when
her husband left home, she repaired to the parlor and summoning Esther
to her presence, asked her again, “When she first observed traces of
indisposition in Mrs. Cameron.”

“When she came home from that dinner at your house. She was just as pale
as death, and her teeth fairly chattered as I took off her things.”

“Dinner? What dinner?” Mrs. Cameron asked, and Esther replied, “Why, the
night Mr. Wilford went away or was to go. She changed her mind about
meeting him at your house, and said she meant to surprise him. But she
came home before Mr. Cameron, looking like a ghost, and saying she was
sick. It’s my opinion something she ate at dinner hurt her.”

“Very likely, yes. You can go now,” Mrs. Cameron said, and Esther
departed, never dreaming how much light she had inadvertently thrown
upon the mystery.

“She must have been in the library and heard all we said,” Mrs. Cameron
thought, as she nervously twisted the fringe of her breakfast shawl. “I
remember we talked of Genevra, and that we both heard a strange sound
from some quarter, but thought it came from the kitchen. That was Katy.
She was there all the time and let herself quietly out of the house. I
wonder does Wilford know,” and then there came over her an intense
desire for Wilford to come home—a desire which was not lessened when she
returned to Katy’s room and heard her talking of Genevra and the grave
at St. Mary’s “where nobody was buried.”

In a tremor of distress, lest she should betray something which Morris
must not know Mrs. Cameron tried to hush her, talking as if it was the
baby she meant, but Katy answered promptly, “It’s Genevra Lambert I
mean, Wilford’s other wife; the one across the sea. She was innocent,
too—as innocent as I, whom you both deceived.”

Here was a phase of affairs for which Mrs. Cameron was not prepared, and
excessively mortified that Morris should hear Katy’s ravings, she tried
again to quiet her, consoling herself with the reflection that as Morris
was Katy’s cousin, he would not repeat what he heard, and feeling
gratified now that Dr. Craig was absent, as she could not be so sure of
him. If Katy’s delirium continued, no one must be admitted to the room
except those who could be trusted, and as there had been already several
rings, she said to Esther that as the fever was probably malignant and
contagious, no one must be admitted to the house with the expectation of
seeing the patient, while the servants were advised to stay in their own
quarters, except as their services might be needed elsewhere. And so it
was that by the morrow the news had spread of some infectious disease at
No. —— on Madison Square, which was shunned as carefully as if smallpox
itself had been raging there instead of the brain fever, which increased
so fast that Morris suggested to Mrs. Cameron that she telegraph for
Wilford.

“They might find him, and they might not,” Mother Cameron said. “They
could try, at all events,” and in a few moments the telegraphic wires
were carrying the news of Katy’s illness, both to the west, where
Wilford had gone, and to the east, where Helen read with a blanched
cheek that Katy perhaps was dying, and she must hasten to New York.

This was Mrs. Cameron’s suggestion, wrung out by the knowing that some
woman besides herself was needed in the sick room, and by feeling that
Helen could be trusted with the story of the first marriage, which Katy
talked of constantly, telling it so accurately that only a fool would
fail of being convinced that there was much of truth in those delirious
ravings.




                             CHAPTER XXXVI.
                       THE FEVER AND ITS RESULTS.


Wilford could not forget Katy’s face, so full of reproach. It followed
him continually, and was the magnet which turned his steps homeward
before his business was quite done, and before the telegram had found
him. Thus it was with no knowledge of existing circumstances that he
reached New York just at the close of the day, and ordering a carriage,
was driven rapidly towards home. All the shutters in the front part of
the house were closed, and not a ray of light was to be seen in the
parlors as he entered the hall, where the gas was burning dimly.

“Katy is at home,” he said, as he went into the library, where a shawl
was thrown across a chair, as if some one had lately been there.

It was his mother’s shawl, and Wilford was wondering if she was there,
when down the stairs came a man’s rapid step, and the next moment Dr.
Grant came into the room, starting when he saw Wilford, who felt
intuitively that something was wrong.

“Is Katy sick?” was his first question, which Morris answered in the
affirmative, holding him back as he was starting for her room, and
saying to him, “Let me send your mother to you first.”

What passed between Wilford and his mother was never known exactly, but
at the close of the interview Mrs. Cameron was very pale, while
Wilford’s face looked dark and anxious as he said, “You think he
understands it then?”

“Yes, in part, but the world will be none the wiser for his knowledge. I
knew Dr. Grant before you did, and there are few men living whom I
respect as much, and no one whom I would trust as soon.”

Mrs. Cameron had paid a high compliment to Morris Grant, and Wilford
bowed in assent, asking next how she managed Dr. Craig.

“That was easy, inasmuch as he believed it an insane freak of Katy’s to
have no other physician than her cousin. It was quite natural, he said,
adding that she was as safe with Dr. Grant as any one. And I was glad,
for I could not have a stranger know of that affair. You will go up
now,” Mrs. Cameron continued, and a moment after Wilford stood in the
dimly-lighted room, where Katy was talking of Genevra and St. Mary’s,
and was only kept upon her pillow by the strong arm of Morris, who stood
over her when Wilford entered, trying in vain to quiet her.

She knew him, and writhing herself away from Morris’s arms, she said to
him, “Genevra is not in that grave at St. Mary’s; she is living, and you
are not my husband. So you can leave the house at once. Morris will
settle the estate, and no bill shall be sent in for your board and
lodging.”

In some moods Wilford would have smiled at being thus summarily
dismissed from his own house; but he was too sore now, too sensitive to
smile, and his voice was rather severe as he laid his hand on Katy’s and
said,

“Don’t be foolish, Katy. Don’t you know me? I am Wilford, your husband.”

“That _was_, you mean,” Katy rejoined, drawing her hand quickly away.
“Go find your first love, where bullets fall like hail, and where there
is pain, and blood, and carnage. Genevra is there.”

She would not let him come near her, and grew so excited with his
presence that he was forced either to leave the room or sit where she
could not see him. He chose the latter, and from his seat by the door
watched with a half jealous, angry heart, Morris Grant doing for his
wife what he should have done.

With Morris Katy was gentle as a little child, talking still of Genevra,
but talking quietly, and in a way which did not wear her out as fast as
her excitement did.

“What God hath joined together let not man put asunder,” was the text
from which she preached several short sermons as the night wore on, but
just as the morning dawned she fell into the first quiet sleep she had
had during the last twenty-four hours. And while she slept Wilford
ventured near enough to see the sunken cheeks and hollow eyes which
wrung a groan from him as he turned to Morris, and asked what he
supposed was the immediate cause of her sudden illness?

“A terrible shock, the nature of which I understand, but you have
nothing to fear from me,” Morris replied. “I accuse you to no man, but
leave you to settle it with your conscience whether you did right to
deceive her so long.”

Morris spoke as one having authority, and Wilford simply bowed his head,
feeling no resentment towards one who had ventured to reprove him.
Afterwards he might remember it differently, but now he was too anxious
to keep Morris there to quarrel with him, and so he made no reply, but
sat watching Katy as she slept, wondering if she would die, and feeling
how terrible life would be without her. Suddenly Genevra’s warning words
rang in his ear.

“God will not forgive you for the wrong you have done me.”

Was Genevra right? Had God remembered all this time, and overtaken him
at last? It might be, and with a groan Wilford hid his face in his
hands, believing that he repented of his sin, and not knowing that his
fancied repentance arose merely from the fact that he had been detected.
Could the last few days be blotted out, and Katy stand just where she
did, with no suspicion of him, he would have cast his remorse to the
winds, and as it is not such repentance God accepts, Wilford had only
begun to sip the cup of retribution presented to his lips.

Worn out with watching and waiting, Mrs. Cameron, who would suffer
neither Juno nor Bell to come near the house, waited uneasily for the
arrival of the New Haven train, which she hoped would bring Helen to her
aid. Under ordinary circumstances she would rather not have met her, for
her presence would keep the letter so constantly in mind; but now
anybody who could be trusted was welcome, and when at last there came a
cautious ring, she went herself to the hall, starting back with
undisguised vexation when she saw the timid-looking woman following
close behind Helen, and whom the latter presented as “My mother, Mrs.
Lennox.”

Convinced that Morris’s sudden journey to New York had something to do
with Katy’s illness, and almost distracted with fears for her daughter’s
life, Mrs. Lennox could not remain at home and wait for the tardy mail
or careless telegraph. She must go to her child, and casting off her
dread of Wilford’s displeasure, she had come with Helen, and was bowing
meekly to Mrs. Cameron, who neither offered her hand nor gave any token
of greeting except a distant bow and a simple “Good morning, madam.”

But Mrs. Lennox was too anxious to notice the lady’s haughty manner as
she led them to the library and then went for her son. Wilford was not
glad to see his mother-in-law, but he tried to be polite, answering her
questions civilly, and when she asked if it were true that he had sent
for Morris, assuring her that it was not. “Dr. Grant happened here very
providentially, and I hope to keep him until the crisis is past,
although he has just told me he must go back to-morrow.” It hurt
Wilford’s pride that _she_, whom he considered greatly his inferior,
should learn his secret; but it could not now be helped, and within an
hour after her arrival she was looking curiously at him for an
explanation of the strange things she heard from Katy’s lips.

“_Was_ you a widower when you married my daughter?” she said to him,
when at last Helen left the room and she was alone with him.

“Yes, madam,” he replied, “some would call me so, though I was divorced
from my wife. As this was a matter which did not in any way concern your
daughter, I deemed it best not to tell her. Latterly she has found it
out, and it is having a very extraordinary effect upon her.”

And this was all Mrs. Lennox knew until alone with Helen, who told her
the story as she had heard it from Morris. His sudden journey to New
York was thus accounted for, and Helen explained it to her mother,
advising her to say nothing of it, as it might be better for Wilford not
to know that Katy had telegraphed for Morris. It seemed very necessary
that Dr. Grant should return to Silverton, and the day following Helen’s
arrival in New York, he made arrangements to do so.

“You have other physicians here,” he said to Wilford, who objected to
his leaving. “Dr. Craig will do as well as I.”

Wilford admitted that he might, but it was with a sinking heart that he
saw Morris depart, and then went to Katy, who began to grow very
restless and uneasy, bidding him go away and send Dr. Morris back. It
was in vain that they administered the medicine just as Morris directed.
Katy grew constantly worse, until Mrs. Lennox asked that another doctor
be called. But to this Wilford would not listen. Fear of exposure and
censure was stronger than his fears for Katy’s life, which seemed
balancing upon a thread as that long night and the next day went by.
Three times Wilford telegraphed for Morris, and it was with unfeigned
joy that he welcomed him back at last, and heard that he had so arranged
his business as to stay with Katy while the danger lasted.

With a monotonous sameness the days now came and went, people still
shunning the house as if the plague was there. Once, Bell Cameron came
round to call on Helen, holding her breath as she passed through the
hall, and never asking to go near Katy’s room. Two or three times, too,
Mrs. Banker’s carriage stood at the door, and Mrs. Banker herself came
in, appearing so cool and distant that Helen could scarcely keep back
her tears as she guessed the cause. Mark, too, was in the city, having
returned with the Seventh Regiment; but from Esther, Helen learned that
he was about joining the army as captain of a company, composed of the
finest men in the city. The next she heard was from Mrs. Banker, who,
incidentally, remarked, “I shall be very lonely now that Mark is gone.
He left me to-day for Washington.”

There were tears on the mother’s face, and her lip quivered as she tried
to keep them back, by looking from the window into the street, instead
of at her companion, who, overcome with the rush of feeling which swept
over her, laid her face on the sofa arm and sobbed aloud.

“Why, Helen! Miss Lennox, I am surprised! I had supposed—I was not
aware—I did not think you would care,” Mrs. Banker exclaimed, coming
closer to Helen, who stammered out, “I beg you will excuse me, I cannot
help it. I care for _all_ our soldiers. It seems so terrible.”

At the words “I care for _all_ the soldiers,” a shadow of disappointment
flitted over Mrs. Banker’s face. She knew her son had offered himself
and been refused, as she supposed; and she believed too that Helen had
given publicity to the affair, fueling justly indignant at this breach
of confidence and lack of delicacy in one whom she had liked so much,
and whom she still liked, in spite of the wounded pride which had
prompted her to appear so cold and distant.

“Perhaps it is all a mistake,” she thought, as she continued standing by
Helen, “or it may be she has relented,” and for a moment she felt
tempted to ask why her boy had been refused.

But Mark would not be pleased with her interference, she knew, and so
the golden moment fled, and when she left the house, the
misunderstanding between herself and Helen was just as wide as ever.
Wearily after that the days passed with Helen until all thoughts of
herself were forgotten in the terrible fear that death was really
brooding over the pillow where Katy lay, insensible to all that was
passing around her. The lips were silent now, and Wilford had nothing to
fear from the tongue hitherto so busy. Juno, Bell, and father Cameron
all came to see her, dropping tears upon the face looking so old and
worn with suffering. Mrs. Cameron, too, was very sorry, very sad, but
managed to find some consolation in mentally arranging a grand funeral,
which would do honor to her son, and wondering if “those Barlows in
Silverton would think they must attend.” And while she thus arranged,
the mother who had given birth to Katy wrestled in earnest prayer that
God would spare her child, or at least grant some space in which she
might be told of the world to which she was hastening. What Wilford
suffered none could guess. His face was very white, and its expression
almost stern, as he sat by the young wife who had been his for little
more than two brief years, and who, but for his sin, might not have been
lying there, unconscious of the love and grief around her. With lip
compressed, and brows firmly knit together, Morris, too, sat watching
Katy, feeling for the pulse, and bending his ear to catch the faintest
breath which came from her parted lips, while in his heart there was an
earnest prayer for the safety of the soul, hovering so evenly between
this world and the next. He did not ask that she might live, for if all
were well hereafter he knew it was better for her to die in her young
womanhood, than to live till the heart, now so sad and bleeding, had
grown calloused with sorrow. And yet it was terrible to think of Katy
dead; terrible to think of that face and form laid away beneath the turf
of Greenwood, where those who loved her best could seldom go to weep.

And as they sat there thus, the night shadows stole into the room, and
the hours crept on till from a city tower a clock struck _ten_, and
Morris, motioning Helen to his side, bade her go with her mother to
rest. “We do not need you here,” he said; “your presence can do no good.
Should a change occur, you shall be told at once.”

Thus importuned, Helen and her mother withdrew, and only Morris and
Wilford remained to watch that heavy slumber, so nearly resembling
death.




                            CHAPTER XXXVII.
                            THE CONFESSION.


Gradually, the noise in the streets died away; the tread of feet, the
rumbling wheels, and the tinkle of car bells ceased, and not a sound was
heard, save as the distant fire bells pealed forth their warning voices,
or some watchman went hurrying by. The great city was asleep, and to
Morris the silence brooding over the countless throng was deeper, more
solemn, than the silence of the country, where nature gives out her own
mysterious notes and lullabies for her sleeping children. Slowly the
minutes went by, and Morris became at last aware that Wilford’s eyes,
instead of resting on the pallid face, which seemed to grow each moment
more pallid and ghastly, were fixed on _him_ with an expression which
made him drop the pale hand he was holding between his own, _pooring_ it
occasionally, as a mother might _poor_ and pity the hand of her dying
baby.

Before his marriage, a jealous thought of Morris Grant had found a
lodgment in Wilford’s breast; but he had tried to drive it out, and
fancied that he had succeeded, experiencing a sudden shock when he felt
it lifting its green head, and poisoning his mind against the man who
was doing for Katy only what a brother might do. He forgot that it was
his own entreaties which kept Morris there, away from his Silverton
patients, who were missing him so much, and complaining of his absence.
Jealous men never reason clearly, and in this case, Wilford did not
reason at all, but jumped readily at his conclusion, calling to his aid
as proof all that he had ever seen pass between Katy and her cousin.
That Morris Grant loved Katy was, after a few moments’ reflection, as
fixed a fact in his mind, as that she lay there between them, moaning
feebly, as if about to speak. Years before, jealousy had made Wilford
almost a madman, and it now held him again in its powerful grasp,
whispering suggestions he would have spurned in a calm frame of mind.
There was a clenching of his fist, a knitting of his brows, and a
gathering blackness in his eyes as he listened while Katy, rousing
partially from her lethargy, talked of the days when she was a little
girl, and Morris had built the play-house for her by the brook, where
the thorn-apples grew and the waters fell over the smooth, white rocks.

“Take me back there,” she said, “and let me lie on the grass again. It
is so long since I was there, and I’ve suffered so much since then.
Wilford meant to be kind, but he did not understand or know how I loved
the country with its birds and flowers and the grass by the well, where
the shadows come and go. I used to wonder where they were going, and one
day when I watched them I was waiting for Wilford and wondering if he
would ever come again. Would it have been better if he never had?”

Wilford’s body shook as he bent forward to listen, while Katy continued:

“Were there no Genevra, I should not think so, but there is, and yet
Morris said that made no difference when I telegraphed for him to come
and take me away.”

Morris felt keenly the awkwardness of his position, but he could offer
no explanation then. He could not speak with those fiery eyes upon him,
and he sat erect in his chair, while Katy talked of Silverton, until her
voice grew very faint, ceasing at last as she fell into a second sleep,
heavier, more death-like, than the first. Something in her face alarmed
Morris, and in spite of the eyes watching him he bent every energy to
retain the feeble pulse, and the breath which grew shorter with each
respiration.

“Do you think her dying?” Wilford asked, and Morris replied, “The look
about the mouth and nose is like the look which so often precedes
death.”

And that was all they said until another hour went by, when Morris’s
hand was laid upon the forehead and moved up under the golden hair where
there were drops of perspiration.

“She is saved! thank God, Katy is saved!” was his joyful exclamation,
and burying his face in his hands, he wept for a moment like a child.

On Wilford’s face there was no trace of tears. On the contrary, he
seemed hardening into stone, and in his heart fierce passions were
contending for the mastery. What did Katy mean by sending for Morris to
take her away? Did she send for him, and was that the cause of his being
there? If so, there was something between the cousins more than mere
friendship. The thought was a maddening one. And, rising slowly at last,
Wilford came round to Morris’s side, and grasping his shoulder, said,

“Morris Grant, you love Katy Cameron.”

Like the peal of a bell on the frosty air the words rang through the
room, starting Morris from his bowed attitude, and for an instant
curdling the blood in his veins, for he understood now the meaning of
the look which had so puzzled him. In Morris’s heart there was a
moment’s hesitancy to know just what to answer—an ejaculatory prayer for
guidance—and then lifting up his head, his calm blue eyes met the eyes
of black unflinchingly as he replied,

“I have loved her always.”

A blaze like sheet lightning shot from beneath Wilford’s eyelashes, and
a taunting sneer curled his lip as he said,

“_You_, a _saint_, confess to this?”

It was in keeping with human nature for Wilford to thrust Morris’s
religion in his face, forgetting that never on this side the eternal
world can man cease wholly to sin; that so long as flesh and blood
remain, there will be temptation, error, and wrong, even among God’s
children. Morris felt the sneer keenly; but the consciousness of peace
with his Maker sustained him in the shock, and with the same tone he had
at first assumed, he said,

“Should my being what you call a saint prevent my confessing what I
did?”

“No, not the confession, but the fact,” Wilford answered, savagely. “How
do you reconcile your acknowledged love for Katy with the injunctions of
the Bible whose doctrines you indorse?”

“A man cannot always control his feelings, but he can strive to overcome
them and put them aside. One does not sin in _being_ tempted, but in
listening _to_ the temptation.”

“Then according to your own reasoning you have sinned, for you not only
have been tempted but have yielded to the temptation,” Wilford retorted,
with a sinister look of exultation in his black eyes.

For a moment Morris was silent, while a struggle of some kind seemed
going on in his mind, and then he said,

“I never thought to lay open to you a secret which, after myself, is, I
believe, known to only one living being.”

“And that one—is—is Katy?” Wilford exclaimed, his voice hoarse with
passion, and his eyes flashing with fire.

“No, not Katy. She has no suspicion of the pain which, since I saw her
made another’s, has eaten into my heart, making me grow old so fast, and
blighting my early manhood.”

Something in Morris’s tone and manner made Wilford relax his grasp upon
the arm, and sent him back to his chair while Morris continued,

“Most men would shrink from talking to a husband of the love they bore
his wife, and an hour ago I should have shrunk from it too, but you have
forced me to it, and now you must listen while I tell you of my love for
Katy. It began longer ago than she can remember—began when she was my
baby sister, and I hushed her in my arms to sleep, kneeling by her
cradle and watching her with a feeling I have never been able to define.
She was in all my thoughts, her face upon the printed page of every book
I studied, and her voice in every strain of music I ever heard. Then
when she grew older, I used to watch the frolicsome child by the hour,
building castles of the future, when she would be a woman, and I a man,
with a man’s right to win her. I know that she shielded me from many a
snare into which young men are apt to fall, for when the temptation was
greatest, and I was at its verge, a thought of her was sufficient to
lead me back to virtue. I carried her in my heart across the sea, and
said when I go back I will ask her to be mine. I went back, but at my
first meeting with Katy after her return from Canandaigua, she told me
of _you_, and I knew then that hope for me was gone. God grant that you
may never experience what I experienced on that day which made her your
wife, and I saw her go away. It seemed almost as if God had forgotten me
as the night after the bridal I sat alone at home, and met that dark
hour of sorrow. In the midst of it _Helen_ came, discovering my secret,
and sympathizing with me until the pain at my heart grew less, and I
could pray that God would grant me a feeling for Katy which should not
be sinful. And He did at last, so I could think of her without a wish
that she was mine. Times there were when the old love would burst forth
with fearful power, and then I wished that I might die. These were my
moments of temptation which I struggled to overcome. Sometimes a song, a
strain of music, or a ray of moonlight on the floor would bring the past
to me so vividly that I would stagger beneath the burden, and feel that
it was greater than I could bear. But God was very merciful, and sent me
work which took up all my time, and drove me away from my own pain to
soothe the pain of others. When Katy came to us last summer there was an
hour of trial, when faith in God grew weak, and I was tempted to
question the justice of His dealing with me. But that too passed, and in
my love for your child I forgot the mother in part, looking upon her as
a sister rather than the Katy I had loved so well. I would have given my
life to have saved that child for her, even though it was a bar between
us, something which separated her from me more than the words she spoke
at the altar. Though dead, that baby is still a bar, and Katy is not the
same to me she was before that little life came into being. It is not
wrong to love her as I do now. I feel no pang of conscience save when
something unexpected carries me back to the old ground where I have
fought so many battles.”

Morris paused a moment, while Wilford said, “She spoke of telegraphing
for you. Why was that, and when?”

Thus interrogated, Morris told of the message which had brought him to
New York, and narrated as cautiously as possible the particulars of the
interview which followed.

Morris’s manner was that of a man who spoke with perfect sincerity, and
it carried conviction to Wilford’s heart, disarming him for a time of
the fierce anger and resentment he had felt while listening to Morris’s
story. Acting upon the good impulse of the moment, he arose, and
offering his hand to Morris, said,

“Forgive me that I ever doubted you. It was natural that you should
come, but foolish in Katy to send or think Genevra is living. I have
seen her grave myself. I know that she is dead. Did Katy name any one
whom she believed to be Genevra?”

“No one. She merely said she had seen the original of the picture,”
Morris replied.

“A fancy,—a mere whim,” Wilford muttered to himself, as, greatly
disquieted and terribly humbled, he paced the room moodily, trying not
to think hard thoughts either against his wife or Dr. Grant, who,
feeling that it would be pleasanter for Wilford if he were gone,
suggested returning to Silverton at once, inasmuch as the crisis was
past and Katy out of danger. There was a struggle in Wilford’s mind as
to the answer he should make to this suggestion, but at last he
signified his willingness for the doctor to leave when he thought best.

It was broad day when Katy woke, so weak as to be unable to turn her
head upon the pillow, but in her eyes the light of reason was shining,
and she glanced wonderingly, first at Helen, who had come in, and then
at Wilford, as if trying to comprehend what had happened.

“Have I been sick?” she asked in a whisper, and Wilford, bending over
her, replied, “Yes, very sick for nearly two whole weeks—ever since I
left home that morning, you know?”

“Yes,” and Katy shivered a little. “Yes, I know. But where is Morris? He
was here the last I can remember.”

Wilford’s face grew dark at once, and stepping back as Morris came in,
he said, “She asks for you.” Then with a rising feeling of resentment he
watched them, while Morris spoke to Katy, telling her she must not allow
herself in any way to be excited.

“Have I been crazy? Have I talked much?” she asked; and when Morris
replied in the affirmative, she said, “Of whom have I talked most?”

“Of _Genevra_,” was the answer, and Katy continued,

“Did I mention any one else?”

Morris guessed of whom she was thinking, and answered indifferently,
“You spoke of Miss Hazelton in connection with baby, but that was all.”

Katy was satisfied, and closing her eyes fell away to sleep again, while
Morris made his preparations for leaving. It hardly seemed right for him
to go just then, but the only one who could have kept him maintained a
frigid silence with regard to a longer stay, and so the first train
which left New York for Springfield carried Dr. Grant, and Katy was
without a physician.

Wilford had hoped that Mrs. Lennox, too, would see the propriety of
accompanying Morris, but she would not leave Katy, and Wilford was fain
to submit to what he could not help. No explanation whatever had he
given to Mrs. Lennox or Helen with regard to Genevra. He was too proud
for that, but his mother had deemed it wise to smooth the matter over as
much as possible, and enjoin upon them both the necessity of secrecy.

“When I tell you that neither my husband nor daughters know it, you will
understand that I am greatly in earnest in wishing it kept,” she said.
“It was a most unfortunate affair, and though the divorce is, of course,
to be lamented, it is better that she died. We never could have received
her as our equal.”

“Was anything the matter, except that she was poor?” Mrs. Lennox asked,
with as much dignity as was in her nature to assume.

“Well, no. She had a good education, I believe, and was very pretty; but
it makes trouble always where there is a great inequality between a
husband’s family and that of his wife.”

Poor Mrs. Lennox understood this perfectly, but she was too much afraid
of the great lady to venture a reply, and a tear rolled down her cheek
as she wet the napkin for Katy’s head, and wished she had back again the
daughter whose family the Camerons despised. The atmosphere of Madison
Square did not suit Mrs. Lennox, especially when, as the days went by
and Katy began to amend, troops of gay ladies called, mistaking her for
the nurse, and staring a little curiously when told she was Mrs.
Cameron’s mother. Of course Wilford chafed and fretted at what he could
not help, making himself so generally disagreeable that Helen at last
suggested returning home. There was a faint remonstrance on his part,
but Helen did not waver in her decision, and the next day was fixed upon
for her departure.

“You don’t know how I dread your going, or how wretched I shall be
without you,” Katy said, when for a few moments they were alone.
“Everything which once made me happy has been removed or changed. Baby
is dead, and Wilford, oh! Helen, I sometimes wish I had not heard of
Genevra, for I am afraid it can never be with us as it was once; I have
not the same trust in him, and he seems so changed.”

As well as she could, Helen comforted her sister, and commending her to
One who would care for her far more than earthly friends could do, she
bade her good-bye, and with her mother went back to Silverton.




                            CHAPTER XXXVIII.
                           DOMESTIC TROUBLES.


Wilford was in a most unhappy frame of mind. He had been humbled to the
very dust, and it was Katy who had done it—Katy, towards whom his heart
kept hardening as he thought over all the past. What right had she to go
to his mother’s after having once declined; or, being there, what right
had she to listen and thus learn the secret he would almost have died to
keep; or, having learned it, why need she have been so much excited, and
sent for _Dr. Grant_ to tell her if she were really a wife, and if not
to take her away? That was the point which hurt him most, for added to
it was the galling fact that Morris Grant loved his wife, and was
undoubtedly more worthy of her than himself. He had said that he forgave
Morris, and at the time he said it he fancied he did, but as the days
went by, and thought was all the busier from the moody silence he
maintained, there gradually came to life a feeling of hatred for the man
whose name he could not hear without a frown, while he watched Katy
closely to detect, if possible, some sign by which he should know that
Morris’s love was reciprocated. But Katy was innocence itself, and tried
so hard to do her duty as a wife, going often to the Friend of whom
Helen had told her, and finding there the grace which helped her bear
what otherwise she could not have borne and lived. The entire history of
her life during that wretched winter was never told save as it was
written on her face, which was a volume in itself of meek and patient
suffering.

Wilford had never mentioned Genevra to her since the day of his return,
and Katy sometimes felt it would be well to talk that matter over. It
might lead to a better understanding than existed between them now, and
dissipate the cloud which hung so darkly on their domestic horizon. But
Wilford repulsed all her advances on that subject, and Genevra was a
dead name in their household. Times there were when for an entire day he
would appear like his former self, caressing her with unwonted
tenderness, but never asked her forgiveness for all he had made her
suffer. He was too proud to do that, and his tenderness always passed
away when he remembered Morris Grant and Katy’s remark to Helen which he
accidentally overheard. “I am afraid it can never be with us as it was
once. I have not the same trust in him.”

“She had no right to complain of me,” he thought, forgetting the time
when he had been guilty of a similar offence in a more aggravated form.
He could not reason upon anything naturally, and matters grew daily
worse, while Katy’s face grew whiter and her voice sadder in its tone.

When the Lenten days came on, oh how Katy longed to be in Silverton—to
kneel again in its quiet church, and offer up her penitential prayers
with the loved ones at home. At last she ventured to ask Wilford if she
might go, her spirits rising when he did not refuse her request at once,
but asked,

“Whom do you wish to see the most?”

His black eyes seemed reading her through, and something in their
expression brought to her face the blush he construed according to his
jealousy, and when she answered, “I wish to see them all,” he retorted,

“Say, rather, you wish to see _that doctor_, who has loved you so long,
and who but for me would have asked you to be his wife!”

“What doctor, Wilford? whom do you mean?” she asked, and Wilford
replied,

“Dr. Grant, of course. Did you never suspect it?”

“Never,” and Katy’s face grew very white, while Wilford continued,

“I had it from his own lips; he sitting on one side of you and I upon
the other. I so forgot myself as to charge him with loving you, and he
did not deny it, but confessed as pretty a piece of romance as I ever
read, except that, according to his story, it was a one-sided affair,
confined wholly to himself. _You_ never dreamed of it, he said.”

“Never, no never,” Katy said, panting for her breath, and remembering
suddenly many things which confirmed what she had heard.

“Poor Morris, how my thoughtlessness must have wounded him,” she
murmured, and then all the pent-up passion in Wilford’s heart burst out
in an impetuous storm.

He did not charge his wife directly with returning Morris’s love; but he
said she was sorry she had not known it earlier, asking her pointedly if
it were not so, and pressing her for an answer, until the bewildered
creature cried out,

“Oh, I don’t know. I never thought of it before.”

“But you can think of it now,” Wilford continued, his cold, icy tone
making Katy shiver, as, more to herself than to him, she whispered,

“A life at Linwood with him would be perfect rest, compared with
_this_.”

Wilford had goaded her on to say that which roused him to a pitch of
frenzy.

“You can go to your _rest_ at Linwood as soon as you like, and I will go
my way,” he whispered hoarsely, and believing himself the most injured
man in existence, he left the house, and Katy heard his step, as it went
furiously down the steps. For a time she sat stunned with what she had
heard, and then there came stealing into her heart a glad feeling that
Morris deemed her worthy of his love when she had so often feared the
contrary. And in this she was not faithless to Wilford. She could pray
with just as pure a heart as before, and she did pray, thanking God for
the love of this good man, but asking that long ere this he might have
learned to be content without her. Never once did the thought “It might
have been,” intrude itself upon her, nor did she send one regret after
the life she had missed. She seemed to rise above all that, and Wilford,
had he read her heart, would have found no evil there.

“Poor Morris,” she kept repeating, while little throbs of pleasure went
dancing through her veins, and the world was not one half so dreary for
knowing he had loved her. Towards Wilford, too, her heart went out in a
fresh gush of tenderness, for she knew how one of his jealous nature
must have suffered.

And all that day she was thinking of him, and how pleasantly she would
meet him when he came home at night, and how she would try to win him
from the dark silent mood now so habitual to him. More than usual pains
she took with her toilet, arranging her bright hair in the long, glossy
curls, which she knew he used to admire, and making sundry little
changes in her black dress. Excitement had brought a faint flush to her
cheeks, and she was conscious of a feeling of gratification that for the
first time in months she was looking like her former self. Slowly the
minutes crept on, and the silver-toned clock in the dining-room said it
was time for Wilford to come; then the night shadows gathered in the
rooms, and the gas was lighted in the hall and in the parlor, where
Katy’s face was pressed against the window pane, and Katy’s eyes peered
anxiously out into the darkening streets, but saw no one alighting at
their door. Wilford did not come. Neither six, nor seven, nor eight
brought him home, and Katy sat down alone to her dinner, which, save the
soup and coffee, was removed untasted. She could not eat with the
terrible dread at her heart that this long protracted absence portended
something more than common. Ten, eleven, and twelve struck from a
distant tower. He _had_ stayed out as late as that frequently, but
rarely later, and Katy listened again for him, until the clock struck
one, and she grew sick with fear and apprehension. It was a long, long,
wretched night, but morning came at last, and at an early hour Katy
drove down to Wilford’s office, finding no one there besides Tom Tubbs
and Mills, the other clerk. Katy could not conceal her agitation, and
her face was very white as she asked what time Mr. Cameron left the
office the previous day.

If Katy had one subject more loyal than another it was young Tom Tubbs,
whose boyish blood had often boiled with rage at the cool manner with
which Wilford treated his wife, when, as she sometimes did, she came
into the office. Tom worshiped Katy Cameron, who, in his whispered
confidences to Mattie, was an angel, while Wilford was accused of being
an overbearing tyrant, whom Tom would like to thrash. He saw at once,
that something unusual was troubling her, and hastening to bring her a
chair, told her that Mr. Cameron left the office about four o’clock;
that he had spent the most of the day in his private office writing and
looking over papers; that he had given his clerks so many directions
with regard to certain matters, that Mills had remarked upon it, saying,
“It would seem as if he did not expect to be here to see to it himself;”
and this was all Katy could learn, but it was enough to increase the
growing terror at her heart, and dropping her veil, she went out to her
carriage, followed by Tom, who adjusted the gay robe across her lap, and
then looked wistfully after her as she drove up Broadway.

“To father Cameron’s,” she said to the driver, who turned his horses
towards Fifth Avenue, where, just coming down the steps of his own
house, they met the elder Cameron.

Katy would rather see him first alone, and motioning him to her side she
whispered: “Oh, father, is Wilford here?”

“Wilford be——”; the old man did not say what, for the expression of
Katy’s face startled him.

That there was something wrong, and father Cameron knew it, was Katy’s
conviction, and she gasped out,

“Tell me the worst. Is Wilford dead?”

Father Cameron was in the carriage by this time, and riding towards
Madison Square, for he did not care to introduce Katy into his
household, which, just at present, presented a scene of dire confusion
and dismay, occasioned by a note received from Wilford to the intent
that he had left New York, and did not know when he should return.

“Katy can tell you why I go,” he added, and father Cameron was going to
Katy when she met him at his door.

To Katy’s repeated question, “Is he dead?” he answered, “Worse than
that, I fear. He has left the city, and no one knows for what, unless
you do. From something he wrote, my wife is led to suppose there was
trouble between you two. Was there?” and father Cameron’s gray eyes
rested earnestly on the white, frightened face which looked up so
quickly as Katy gasped,

“_There has_ been trouble—that is, he has not appeared quite the same
since——”

She was interrupted by the carriage stopping before her door; but when
they were in the parlor, father Cameron said,

“Go on now. Wilford has not been the same since when?”

Thus importuned, Katy continued,

“Since baby died. I think he blamed me as the cause of its death.”

“Don’t babies die every day?” father Cameron growled, while Katy,
without considering that he had never heard of Genevra, continued,

“And then it was worse after I found out about Genevra, his first wife.”

“Genevra! Genevra, Wilford’s first wife! Thunder and lightning! what are
you talking about?” and father Cameron bent down to look in Katy’s face,
thinking she was going mad.

But Katy was not mad, and knowing it was now too late to retract, she
told the story of Genevra Lambert to the old man, who, utterly
confounded, stalked up and down the room, kicking away chairs and
footstools, and whatever came in his way, and swearing promiscuously at
his wife and Wilford, whom he pronounced a precious pair of fools, with
a dreadful adjective appended to the _fools_, and an emphasis in his
voice which showed he meant what he said.

“It’s all accounted for now,” he said; “the piles of money that boy had
abroad, his privacy with his mother, and all the other tomfoolery I
could not understand. Katy,” and pausing in his walk, Mr. Cameron came
close to his daughter-in-law, who was lying with her face upon the sofa.
“Katy, be glad your baby died. Had it lived it might have proved a
curse, just as mine have done—not all, for Bell, though fiery as a
pepper-pod, has some heart, some sense—and there was Jack, my _oldest_
boy, a little fast it’s true, but when he died over the sea, I forgave
all that, and forgot the chair he broke over a tutor’s head, and the
scrapes for which I paid as high as a thousand at one time. He sowed his
wild oats, and died before he could reap them—died a good man, I
believe, and went to Heaven. Juno you know, and you can judge whether
she is such as would delight a parent’s heart; while Wilford, my only
boy, to deceive me so; I knew he was a fool in some things, but I did
trust Wilford.”

The old man’s voice shook now, and Katy felt his tears dropping on her
hair as he stooped over her. Checking them, however, he said,

“And he was cross because you found him out. Was there no other reason?”

Katy thought of Dr. Morris, but she could not tell of that, and so she
answered,

“There was—but please don’t ask me now. I can’t tell, only I was not to
blame. Believe me, father, I was not to blame.”

“I’ll swear to that,” was the reply, and father Cameron commenced his
walking again, just as Esther came to the door with the morning letters.

There was one from Wilford for Katy, who nervously tore off the envelope
and read as follows:

  “Will you be sorry when you read this and find that I am gone, that
  you are free from the husband you do not love,—whom, perhaps, you
  never loved, though I thought you did. I trusted you once, and now I
  do not blame you as much as I ought, for you are young and easily
  influenced. You are very susceptible to flattery, as was proven by
  your career at Saratoga and Newport. I had no suspicion of you then,
  but now that I know you better, I see that it was not all childish
  simplicity which made you smile so graciously upon those who sought
  your favor. You are a coquette, Katy, and the greater one because of
  that semblance of artlessness which is the perfection of art. This,
  however, I might forgive, if I had not learned that another man loved
  you first and wished to make you his wife, while you, in your secret
  heart, wish you had known it sooner. Don’t deny it, Katy; I saw it in
  your face when I first told you of Dr. Grant’s confession, and I heard
  it in your voice as well as in your words when you said ‘A life at
  Linwood would be perfect rest compared with this.’ That hurt me
  cruelly, Katy. I did not deserve it from one for whom I have done and
  borne so much, and it was the final cause of my leaving you, for I am
  going to Washington to enroll myself in the service of my country. You
  will be happier without me for awhile, and perhaps when I return,
  Linwood will not look quite the little paradise it does now.

  “I might reproach you with having telegraphed to Dr. Grant about that
  miserable Genevra affair which you had not discretion enough to keep
  to yourself. Few men would care to have their wives send for a former
  lover in their absence and ask that lover to take them away. Your
  saintly cousin, good as he is, cannot wonder at my vexation, or blame
  me greatly for going away. Perhaps he will offer you comfort, both
  religious and otherwise: but if you ever wish me to return, avoid him
  as you would shun a deadly poison. Until I countermand the order, I
  wish you to remain in the house which I bought for you. Helen and your
  mother both may live with you, while father will have a general
  oversight of your affairs; I shall send him a line to that effect.

                                            “YOUR DISAPPOINTED HUSBAND.”

This was the letter, and there was perfect silence while Katy read it
through, Mr. Cameron never taking his eyes from her face, which turned
first white, then red, then spotted, and finally took a leaden hue as
Katy ran over the lines, comprehending the truth as she read, and when
the letter was finished, lifting her dry, tearless eyes to Father
Cameron, and whispering to herself,

“Deserted!”

She let him read the letter, and when he had finished, explained the
parts he did not understand, telling him now what Morris had
confessed—telling him too that in her first sorrow, when life and sense
seemed reeling, she had sent for Dr. Grant, knowing she could trust him
and be right in doing whatever he advised.

“_Why_ did you say you sent for him—that is, _what_ was the special
reason?” Mr. Cameron asked, and Katy told him her belief that Genevra
was living—that it was she who made the bridal trousseau for Wilford’s
second wife, she who nursed his child until it died, giving to it her
own name, arraying it for the grave, and then leaving before the father
came.

“I never told Wilford,” Katy said. “I felt as if I would rather he
should not know it yet. Perhaps I was wrong, but if so, I have been
terribly punished.”

Mr. Cameron could not look upon the woman who stood before him, so
helpless and stricken in her desolation, and believe her wrong in
anything. The guilt lay in another direction, and when, as the terrible
reality that she was indeed a deserted wife came rushing over Katy, she
tottered toward him for help; he stretched his arms out for her, and
taking the sinking figure in them, laid it upon the sofa as gently, as
kindly, as Wilford had ever touched it in his most loving days.

Katy did not faint nor weep. She was past all that; but her face was
like a piece of marble, and her eyes were like those of the hunted fawn
when the chase is at its height, and escape impossible.

“Wilford will come back, of course,” the father said, “but that does not
help us now. What the plague—who is ringing that bell enough to break
the wire?” he added, as a sharp, rapid ring echoed through the house,
and was answered by Esther. “It’s my wife,” he continued, as he caught
the sound of her voice in the hall.

“You stay here while I meet her first alone. _I’ll_ give it to her for
cheating me so long, and raising thunder generally!”

Katy tried to protest, but he was half way down the stairs, and in a
moment more was with his wife, who, impatient at his long delay, had
come herself, armed and equipped, to censure Katy as the cause of
Wilford’s disappearance, and to demand of her what she had done. But the
lady who came in so haughty and indignant was a very different personage
from the lady who, after listening for fifteen minutes to a fearful
storm of oaths and reproaches, mingling with startling truths and bitter
denunciations against herself and her boy, sank into a chair, pale and
trembling, and overwhelmed with the harvest she was reaping.

But her husband was not through with her yet. He had reserved the
bitterest drop for the last, and coming close to her he said,

“And _who_ think you the woman is—this Genevra, Wilford’s and your
divorced wife? You were too proud to acknowledge an apothecary’s
daughter! See if you like better a dressmaker, a nurse to Katy’s baby,
_Marian Hazelton_!”

He whispered the last name, and with a shriek the lady fainted. Mr.
Cameron would not summon a servant; and as there was no water in the
room, he walked to the window, and lifting the sash scraped from the
sill a handful of the light spring snow which had been falling since
morning. With this he brought his wife back to consciousness, and then
marked out her future course.

“I know what is in your mind,” he said; “people _will_ talk about
Wilford’s going off so suddenly, and you would like to have all the
blame rest on Katy; but, madam, hear me: Just so sure as through your
means one breath of suspicion falls on her, I’ll _bla-at_ out the whole
story of Genevra. Then see who is censured. On the other hand, if you
hold your tongue, and make Juno hold hers, and stick to Katy through
thick and thin, acting as if you would like to swallow her whole, I’ll
say nothing of this Genevra. Is it a bargain?”

“Yes,” came faintly from the sofa cushions, where Mrs. Cameron had
buried her face, sobbing in a confused, frightened way, and after a few
moments asking to see Katy, whom she kissed and caressed with unwonted
tenderness, telling her Wilford would come back, and adding, that in any
event no one could or should blame her. “Wilford was wrong to deceive
you about Genevra. I was wrong to let him; but we will have no more
concealments. You think she is living still—that she is Marian
Hazelton?” and Mrs. Cameron smoothed Katy’s hair as she talked, trying
to be motherly and kind, while her heart beat more painfully at thoughts
of a Genevra living, than it ever had at thoughts of a Genevra dead.

She did not doubt the story, although it seemed so strange, and it made
her faint as she wondered if the world would ever know, and what it
would say if it did. That her husband would tell, if she failed in a
single point, she was sure; but she would not fail. She would swear Katy
was innocent of everything, if necessary, while Juno and Bell should
swear too. Of course, they must know, and she should tell them that very
night, she said to herself; and hence it was that in the gossip which
followed Wilford’s disappearance, not a word was breathed against Katy,
whose cause the family espoused so warmly,—Bell and the father because
they really loved and pitied her, and Mrs. Cameron and Juno because it
saved them from the disgrace which would have fallen on Wilford, had the
fashionable world known then of Genevra.

Wilford’s leaving home so suddenly to join the army, could not fail,
even in New York, to cause some excitement, especially in his own
immediate circle of acquaintance, and for several days the matter was
discussed in all its phases, and every possible opinion and conjecture
offered, as to the cause of his strange freak. They could not believe in
domestic troubles when they saw how his family clung to and defended
Katy from the least approach of censure, Juno taking up her abode with
her “afflicted sister,” Mrs. Cameron driving round each day to see her;
Bell always speaking of her with genuine affection, while the father
clung to her like a hero, the quartette forming a barrier across which
the shafts of scandal could not reach.




                             CHAPTER XXXIX.
                             WHAT FOLLOWED.


When Wilford left Katy so abruptly he had no definite purpose in his
mind. He was very sore with the remembrance of all that had passed since
baby’s death, and very angry at his wife, who he believed preferred
another to himself, or who would have done so had she known in time what
she did now. Like most angry people, he forgot wherein he had been in
fault, but charged it all to Katy as he went down Broadway that spring
morning, finding on his table a letter from an old classmate, who was
then in Washington getting up a company, and who wrote urging his friend
to join him at once, and offering him the rank of First Lieutenant. Here
was a temptation,—here an opportunity to revenge himself on Katy,
against whom he wrote a sad list of errors, making it sadder by brooding
over and magnifying it until he reached a point from which he would not
swerve.

“I shall do it,” he said, and his lips were pressed firmly together, as
in his private office he sat revolving the past, and then turning to the
future, opening so darkly before him, and making him shudder as he
thought of what it might bring. “I will spare Katy as much as possible,”
he said, “for hers is a different nature from Genevra’s. She cannot bear
as well,” and a bitter groan broke the silence of the room as Katy came
up before him just as she had looked that very morning standing by the
window, with tears in her eyes, and a wistful, sorry look on her white
face.

But Wilford was not one to retract when a decision was reached, and so
he arranged his business matters as well as his limited time would
allow; then, after the brief note to his father, wrote the letter to
Katy, and then followed to the Jersey ferry a regiment of soldiers who
were going on to Washington that night. Four days more and Lieutenant
Wilford Cameron, with no regret as yet for the past, marched away to
swell the ranks of men who, led by General McClellan, were pressing on,
as they believed, to Richmond and victory. A week of terrible suspense
went by, and then there came a letter to Mr. Cameron from his son,
requesting him to care for Katy, but asking no forgiveness for himself.
There were no apologies, no explanations, no kind words for Katy, whose
eyes moved slowly over the short letter, and then were lifted sadly to
her father’s face as she said,

“I will write to him myself, and on his answer will depend my future
course.”

This she said referring to the question she had raised as to whether she
should remain in New York or go to Silverton, where the family as yet
knew nothing except that Wilford had joined the army. And so the days
went by, while Katy’s letter was sent to Wilford, together with another
from his father, who called his son a “confounded fool,” telling him to
throw up his shoulder straps, which only honest men had a right to wear,
and come home where he belonged.

To this there came an indignant answer, bidding the father attend to his
own business, and allow the son to attend to his. To Katy, however,
Wilford wrote in a different strain, showing here and there marks of
tenderness and relenting, but saying what he had done could not now be
helped,—he was in for a soldier’s life for two years, and should abide
his choice.

This was the purport of Wilford’s letter, and Katy, when she finished
reading it, said sorrowfully,

“Wilford never loved me, and I cannot stay in _his_ home, knowing that I
am not trusted and respected as a wife should be. I will go to
Silverton. There is room for me there.”

Meanwhile at Silverton there was much anxiety for Katy, and many doubts
expressed lest something was wrong. That Wilford should go away so
suddenly, when he had never been noted for any very great amount of
patriotism, seemed strange, and Uncle Ephraim at last made up his mind
to the herculean task of going to New York to see what was the matter.

Presuming upon her experience as a traveler, Aunt Betsy had proffered
sundry pieces of advice with reference to what it was best for him to do
on the road, telling him which side of the car to sit, where to get out,
and above all things not to shake hands with the conductor when asked
for his ticket.

Uncle Ephraim heard her good-humoredly, and stuffing into his pocket the
paper of ginger-snaps, fried cakes and cheese, which Aunt Hannah had
prepared for his lunch, he started for the cars, and was soon on his way
to New York.

In his case there was no Bob Reynolds to offer aid and comfort, and the
old man was nearly torn in pieces by the hackmen, who, the moment he
appeared to view, pounced upon him as lawful prey, each claiming the
honor of taking him wherever he wished to go, and raising such a din
about his ears that he turned away thoroughly disgusted, telling them—

“He had feet and legs, and common sense, and he guessed he could find
his way without ’em. ’Bleeged to you, gentlemen, but I don’t need you,”
and with a profound bow the honest looking old deacon walked away,
asking the first man he met the way to Madison Square, and succeeding in
finding the number without difficulty.

With a scream of joy Katy threw herself into Uncle Ephraim’s arms, and
then led him to her own room, while the first tears she had shed since
she knew she was deserted rained in torrents over her face.

“What is it, Katy-did? I mistrusted something was wrong. What has
happened?” Uncle Ephraim asked; and with his arm around her, Katy told
him what had happened, and asked what she should do.

“Do?” the old man repeated. “Go home with me to your own folks until he
comes from the wars. He is your husband, and I shall say nothing agin
him; but if it was to go over I would forbid the banns. That chap has
misused you the wust way. You need not deny it, for it’s writ all over
your face,” he continued, as Katy tried to stop him, for sore as was her
heart with the great injustice done her, she would not have Wilford
blamed, and she was glad when dinner was announced, as that would put an
end to the painful conversation.

Leading Uncle Ephraim to the table, she presented him to Juno, whose
cold nod and haughty stare were lost on the old man, bowing his white
head so reverently as he asked the first blessing which had ever been
asked at that table.

It had not been a house of prayer—no altar had been erected for the
morning and evening sacrifice. God had almost been forgotten, and now He
was pouring His wrath upon the handsome dwelling, making it so
distasteful that Katy was anxious to leave it, and expressed her desire
to accompany Uncle Ephraim to Silverton as soon as the necessary
arrangements could be made.

“I don’t take it she comes for good,” Uncle Ephraim said that evening,
when Mr. Cameron opposed her going. “When the two years are gone, and
her man wants her back, she must come of course. But she grows poor here
in the city. It don’t agree with her like the scent of the clover and
the breeze from the hills. So, shet up the house for a spell, and let
the child come with me.”

Mr. Cameron knew that Katy would be happier at Silverton, and he finally
consented to her going, and placed at her disposal a sum which seemed to
the deacon a little fortune in itself.

To Mrs. Cameron and Juno it was a relief to have Katy taken from their
hands, and though they made a show of opposition, they were easily
quieted, and helped her off with alacrity, the mother promising to see
that the house was properly cared for, and Juno offering to send the
latest fashions which might be suitable, as soon as they appeared. Bell
was heartily sorry to part with the young sister, who seemed going from
her forever.

“I know you will never come back. Something tells me so,” she said, as
she stood with her arms around Katy’s waist, and her lips occasionally
touching Katy’s forehead. “But I shall see you,” she continued; “I am
coming to the farm-house in the summer, and you may say to Aunt Betsy
that I like her ever so much, and”—Bell glanced behind her, to see that
no one was listening, and then continued—“tell her a certain officer was
sick a few days in a hospital last winter, and one of his men brought to
him a dish of the most delicious dried peaches he ever ate. That man was
from _Silverton_, and the fruit was sent to him, he said, in a salt bag,
by a nice old lady, for whose brother he used to work. Just to think
that the peaches I helped to pare, coloring my hands so that the stain
did not come off in a month, should have gone so straight to _Bob_!” and
Bell’s fine features shone with a light which would have told Bob
Reynolds he was beloved, if the lips did refuse to confess it.

“I’ll tell her,” Katy said, and then bidding them all good-bye, and
putting her hand on Uncle Ephraim’s arm, she went with him from the home
where she had lived but two years, and those the saddest, most eventful
ones of her short life.




                              CHAPTER XL.
                            MARK AND HELEN.


There was much talk in Silverton when it was known that Katy had come to
stay until her husband returned from the war, and at first the people
watched her curiously as she came among them again, so quiet, so
subdued, so unlike the Katy of old that they would have hardly
recognized her but for the beauty of her face and the sunny smile she
gave to all, and which rested oftenest on the poor and suffering, who
blessed her as the angel of their humble homes, praying that God would
remember her for all she was to them. Wilford had censured her at first
for going to Silverton, when he preferred she should stay in New York,
hinting darkly at the reason of her choice, and saying to her once, when
she told him how the Sunday before her twenty-first birthday she had
knelt before the altar and taken upon herself the vows of confirmation,
“Your saintly cousin is, of course, delighted, and that I suppose is
sufficient, without my congratulations.”

Perhaps he did not mean it, but he seemed to take delight in teasing
her, and Katy sometimes felt she should be happier without his letters
than with them. He never said he was sorry he had left her so
suddenly—indeed he seldom referred to the past in any way; or if he did,
it was in a manner which showed that he thought himself the injured
party, if either.

Katy did not often go to Linwood, and seldom saw Morris alone. After
what had passed she thought it better to avoid him as much as possible,
and was glad when early in June he accepted a situation offered him as
surgeon in a Georgetown hospital, and left Silverton for his new field
of labor.

True to her promise, Bell came the last of July to Silverton, proving
herself a dreadful romp, as she climbed over the rocks in Aunt Betsy’s
famous sheep-pasture, or raked the hay in the meadow, and proving
herself, too, a genuine woman, as with blanched cheek and anxious heart
she waited for tidings from the battles before Richmond, where the tide
of success seemed to turn, and the North, hitherto so jubilant and
hopeful, wore weeds of mourning from Maine to Oregon. Lieut. Bob was
there, and Wilford, too; and so was Captain Ray, digging in the marshy
swamps, where death floated up in poisonous exhalations—plodding on the
weary march, and fighting all through the seven days, where the sun
poured down its burning heat and the night brought little rest. No
wonder, then, that three faces at the farm-house grew white with
anxiety, or that three pairs of eyes grew dim with watching the daily
papers. But the names of neither Wilford, Mark, nor Bob were ever found
among the wounded, dead, or missing, and with the fall of the first
autumn leaf Bell returned to the city more puzzled, more perplexed than
ever with regard to Helen Lennox’s real feelings toward Captain Ray.

The week before Christmas, Mark came home for a few days, looking ruddy
and bronzed from exposure and hardship, but wearing a disappointed,
listless look which Bell was quick to detect, connecting it in some way
with Helen Lennox. Only once did he call at Mr. Cameron’s and then as
Juno was out Bell had him to herself, talking of Silverton, of Helen and
Katy, in the latter of whom he seemed far more interested than her
sister. Many questions he asked concerning Katy, expressing his regret
that Wilford had left her, and saying he believed Wilford was sorry,
too. He was in the hospital now, with a severe cold and a touch of the
rheumatism, he said; but as Bell knew this already she did not dwell
long upon that subject, choosing rather to talk of Helen, who, she said,
was “as much interested in the soldiers, as if she had a brother or a
lover in the army,” and her bright eyes glanced meaningly at Mark, who
answered carelessly,

“_Dr. Grant_ is there, and that may account for her interest.”

Mark knew he must say something to ward off Bell’s attacks, and he
continued talking of Dr. Grant and how much he was liked by the poor
wretches who needed some one like him to keep them from dying of
homesickness if nothing else; then, after a few bantering words
concerning Lieutenant Bob and the _picture_ he carried into every
battle, buttoned closely over his heart, Mark Ray took his leave, while
Bell ran up to her mother’s room as a seamstress was occupying her own.
Mrs. Cameron was out that afternoon, and that she had dressed in a hurry
was indicated by the unusual confusion of her room. Drawers were left
open and various articles scattered about, while on the floor, just as
it had fallen from a glove-box, lay a _letter_ which Bell picked up,
intending to replace it.

“_Miss Helen Lennox_,” she read in astonishment. “How came Helen
Lennox’s letter _here_, and from _Mark Ray_ too,” she continued, still
more amazed as she took the neatly folded note from the envelope and
glanced at the name. “Foul play somewhere. Can it be mother?” she asked,
as she read enough to know that she held in her hand Mark’s offer of
marriage, which had in some mysterious manner found its way to her
mother’s room. “I don’t understand it,” she said, racking her brain for
a solution of the mystery. “But I’ll send it to Helen this very day, and
to-morrow I’ll tell Mark Ray.”

Procrastination was not one of Bell Cameron’s faults, and for full half
an hour before her mother and Juno came home, the stolen letter had been
lying in the mail box where Bell herself deposited it, together with a
few hurriedly-written lines, telling how it came into her hands, but
offering no explanation of any kind.

“Mark is home now on a leave of absence which expires day after
to-morrow,” she wrote, “I am going round to see him, and if you do not
hear from him in person I am greatly mistaken.”

The next day a series of hindrances kept Bell from making her call as
early as she had intended, so that Mrs. Banker and Mark were just rising
from dinner when told she was in the parlor.

“I meant to have come before,” she said, seating herself by Mark, “but I
could not get away. I have brought you some good news. I think,—that
is,—yes, I know there has been some mistake, some wrong somewhere. Mark
Ray, yesterday afternoon I found,—no matter where or how—a letter
intended for Helen Lennox, which I am positive she never saw or heard
of; at least her denial to me that a certain Mark Ray had ever offered
himself is a proof that she never saw what _was_ an offer made just
before you went away. I read enough to know that, and then I took the
letter and——”

She hesitated, while Mark’s eyes turned dark with excitement, and even
Mrs. Banker, scarcely less interested, leaned eagerly forward, saying,

“And what? Go on, Miss Cameron. What did you do with that letter?”

“I sent it to its rightful owner, Helen Lennox. I posted it myself. But
why don’t you thank me, Captain Ray?” she asked, as Mark’s face was
overshadowed with anxiety.

“I was wondering whether it were well to send it—wondering how it might
be received,” he said, and Bell replied.

“She will not answer no. As one woman knows another, I know Helen
Lennox. I have sounded her on that point. I told her of the rumor there
was afloat, and she denied it, seeming greatly distressed, but showing
plainly that had such offer been received she would not have refused it.
You should have seen her last summer, Captain Ray, when we waited so
anxiously for news from the Potomac. Her face was a study as her eyes
ran over the list of casualties, searching _not_ for her amiable
_brother-in-law_, nor yet for _Willard Braxton_, their hired man. It was
plain to me as daylight, and all you have to do is to follow up that
letter with another, or go yourself, if you have time,” Bell said, as
she rose to go, leaving Mark in a state of bewilderment as to what he
had heard.

Who withheld that letter? and why? were questions which troubled him
greatly, nor did his mother’s assurance that it did not matter so long
as it all came right at last, tend wholly to reassure him. One thing,
however, was certain. He would see Helen before he returned to his
regiment. He would telegraph in the morning to Washington, and then run
the risk of being a day behind the time appointed for his return to
duty.

“Suppose you have three children when I return, instead of two, is there
room in your heart for the third?” he asked his mother when next morning
he was about starting for Silverton.

“Yes, always room for Helen,” was the reply, as with a kiss of
benediction Mrs. Banker sent her boy away.




                              CHAPTER XLI.
                      CHRISTMAS EVE AT SILVERTON.


There was to be a Christmas tree at St. John’s, and all the week the
church had been the scene of much confusion. But the work was over now;
the church was swept and dusted, the tree with its gay adornings was in
its place, the little ones, who had hindered so much, were gone, as were
their mothers, and Helen only tarried with the organ boy to play the
Christmas Carol, which Katy was to sing alone, the children joining in
the chorus as they had been trained to do. It was very quiet there, and
pleasant, with the fading sunlight streaming through the chancel window,
lighting up the cross above it, and falling softly on the wall where the
evergreens were hung with the sacred words, “Peace on earth and good
will towards men.” And Helen felt the peace stealing over her as she sat
down by the register for a moment ere going to the organ loft where the
boy was waiting for her. Not even the remembrance of the dark war-cloud
hanging over the land disturbed her then, as her thoughts went backward
eighteen hundred years to Bethlehem’s manger and the little Child whose
birth the angels sang. And as she thought, that Child seemed to be with
her, a living presence to which she prayed, leaning her head upon the
railing of the pew in front, and asking Him to keep her in the perfect
peace she felt around her now. For Mark Ray, too, she prayed, asking God
to keep him in safety wherever he might be, whether in the lonely watch,
or in some house of God, where the Christmas carols would be sung and
the Christmas story told.

As she lifted up her head her hand struck against the pocket of her
dress, where lay the letter brought to her an hour or so ago—Bell’s
letter—which she had put aside to read at a more convenient season.

Taking it out, she tore open the envelope, starting suddenly as another
letter, soiled and unsealed, met her eye. She read Bell’s first, and
then, with a throbbing heart, which as yet would not believe, she took
up Mark’s, understanding now much that was before mysterious to her.
Juno’s call came to her mind, and though she was unwilling to charge so
foul a wrong upon that young lady, she could find no other solution to
the mystery. There was a glow of indignation—Helen had scarcely been
mortal without it;—but that passed away in pity for the misguided girl
and in joy at the happiness opening so broadly before her. That Mark
would _come_ to Silverton she had no hope, but he would write—his
letter, perhaps, was even then on the way; and kissing the one she held,
she hid it in her bosom and went up to where the organ boy had for
several minutes been kicking at stools and books, and whistling _Old
John Brown_ by way of attracting attention. The boy was in a hurry, and
asked in so forlorn a tone, “_Is_ we going to play?” that Helen answered
good-humoredly, “Just a few minutes, Billy. I want to try the carol and
the opening, which I’ve hardly played at all.”

With an air of submission Bill took his post and Helen began to play,
but she could only see before her, “I have loved you ever since that
morning when I put the lilies in your hair,” and played so out of time
and tune that Billy asked, “What makes ’em go so bad?”

“I can’t play now; I’m not in the mood,” she said. “I shall feel better
by and by. You can go home if you like.”

Bill needed no second bidding, but catching up his cap ran down the
stairs and out into the porch, just as up the steps a young man came
hurriedly.

“Hallo, boy,” he cried, grasping the collar of Bill’s roundabout and
holding him fast, “who’s in the church?”

“Darn yer, Jim Sykes, you let me be, or I’ll——” the boy began, but when
he saw his captor was not _Jim Sykes_, but a tall man, wearing a
soldier’s uniform, he changed his tone, and answered civilly, “I thought
you was Jim Sykes, the biggest bully in town, who is allus hectorin’ us
boys. Nobody is there but she——Miss Lennox—up where the organ is,” and
having given the desired information, Bill ran off, wondering first if
it wasn’t Miss Helen’s _beau_, and wondering next, in case she should
sometime get married in church, if he wouldn’t fee the _organ boy_ as
well as the sexton. “He orto,” Bill soliloquized, “for I’ve about blowed
my gizzard out sometimes, when she and Mrs. Cameron sings the Te Deum.”

Meanwhile Mark Ray, who had driven first to the farm-house in quest of
Helen, entered the church, and stole noiselessly up the stairs to where
Helen sat in the dim light, reading again the precious letter withheld
from her so long. She had moved her stool nearer to the window, and her
back was towards the door, so that she neither saw, nor heard, nor
suspected anything, until Mark, bending over her so as to see what she
had in her hand, as well as the _tear_ she had dropped upon it, clasped
both his arms about her neck, and drawing her face over back, kissed her
fondly, calling her his darling, and saying to her, as she tried to
struggle from him,

“I know I have a right to call you darling, by that tear on my letter,
and the look upon your face. Dear Helen, we have found each other at
last.”

It was so unexpected that Helen could not speak, but she let her head
rest on his bosom, where he had laid it, and her hand crept into his, so
that he was answered, and for a moment he only kissed and caressed the
fair girl he knew now was his own. They could not talk together very
long, for Helen must go home; but he made good use of the time he had,
telling her many things, and then asking her a question which made her
start away from him as she replied. “No, no, oh! no, not to-night—not so
soon as that!”

“And why not, Helen?” he asked, with the manner of one who was not to be
denied. “Why not to-night, so there need be no more misunderstanding?
I’d rather leave you as my wife than my betrothed. Mother will like it
better. I hinted it to her and she said there was room for you in her
love. It will make me a better man, and a better soldier, if I can say
‘my wife,’ as other soldiers do. You don’t know what a charm there is in
that word, Helen. It keeps a man from sin, and if I should die I would
rather you should bear my name, and share in my fortune. Will you,
Helen, when the ceremonies are closed, will you go up to that altar and
pledge your vows to me. I cannot wait till to-morrow; my leave of
absence expires to-day. I must go back to-night, but you must first be
mine.”

Helen was shaking as with a chill, but she made him no reply, and
wrapping her cloak and furs about her, Mark led her down to the sleigh,
and taking his seat beside her, drove back to the farm-house where the
family were waiting for her. Katy, to whom Mark first communicated his
desire, warmly espoused his cause, and that went far towards reassuring
Helen, who for some time past had been learning to look up to Katy as to
an older sister, so sober, so earnest, so womanly had Katy grown since
Wilford went away.

“It is so sudden, and people will talk,” Helen said, knowing, while she
said it, how little she cared for people, and smiling at Katy’s reply.

“They may as well talk about you awhile as me. It is not so bad when
once you are used to it.”

After Katy, Aunt Betsy was Mark’s best advocate. It is true this was not
just what she had expected when Helen was married. The _infair_ which
Wilford had declined was still in Aunt Betsy’s mind; but that, she
reflected, might be yet. If Mark went back on the next train there could
be no proper wedding party until his return, when the loaves of frosted
cake, and the baked fowls she had seen in imagination should be there in
real, tangible form, and as she expressed it they would have a “high.”
Accordingly she threw herself into the scale beginning to balance in
favor of Mark, and when at last old Whitey stood at the door, ready to
take the family to the church, Helen sat upon the lounge listening half
bewildered while Katy assured her that _she_ could play the voluntary,
even if she had not looked at it, that she could lead the children
without the organ, and in short do everything Helen was expected to do
except go to the altar _with Mark_.

“That I leave for you,” and she playfully kissed Helen’s forehead, as
she tripped from the room, looking back when she reached the door, and
charging the lovers not to forget to come, in their absorption of each
other.

St. John’s was crowded that night, the children occupying the front
seat, with looks of expectancy upon their faces, as they studied the
heavily laden tree, the boys wondering if that ball, or whistle, or
wheelbarrow was for them, and the girls appropriating the
tastefully-dressed dolls showing so conspicuously among the dark green
foliage. The Barlows were rather late, for upon Uncle Ephraim devolved
the duty of seeing to the license, and as he had no seat in that house,
his arrival was only known by Aunt Betsy’s elbowing her way to the
front, and near to the Christmas tree which she had helped to dress,
just as she had helped to trim the church. She did not believe in such
“flummeries” it is true and she classed them with the “quirks,” but
rather than “see the gals slave themselves to death,” she had this year
lent a helping hand. Donning two shawls, a camlet cloak, a knit scarf
for her head, and a hood to keep from catching cold, she had worked
early and late, fashioning the most wonderfully shaped wreaths, tying up
festoons, and even trying her hand at a triangle; she turned her back
resolutely upon _crosses_, which were more than her Puritanism could
endure. The cross was a “quirk,” with which she’d have nothing to do,
though once, when Katy seemed more than usually bothered and wished
somebody would hand her _tacks_, Aunt Betsy relented so far as to bring
the hoop she was winding close to Katy, holding the little nails in her
mouth, and giving them out as they were wanted; but with each one given
out, conscientiously turning her head away, lest her eyes should fall
upon what she conceived the symbol of the Romish Church. But when the
whole was done, none were louder in their praises than Aunt Betsy, who
was guilty of asking Mrs. Deacon Bannister, when she came in to inspect,
“why the Orthodox couldn’t get up some such doin’s for their
Sunday-school. It pleased the children mightily.”

But Mrs. Deacon Bannister answered with some severity,

“We don’t believe in shows and _plays_, you know,” thus giving a double
thrust, and showing that the opera had never been quite forgotten.
“Here’s a pair of skates, though, and a smellin’ bottle I’d like to have
put on for John and Sylvia,” she added, handing her package to Aunt
Betsy, who, while seeing the skates and smelling bottle suspended from a
bough, was guilty of wondering if “the partaker wasn’t most as bad as
the thief.”

This was in the afternoon, and was all forgotten now, when with her
Sunday clothes she never would have worn in that jam but for the great
occasion, Aunt Betsy elbowed her way up the middle aisle, her face
wearing a very important and knowing look, especially when Uncle
Ephraim’s tall figure bent for a moment under the hemlock boughs, and
then disappeared in the little vestry room where he held a private
consultation with the rector. That she knew something her neighbors
didn’t was evident, but she kept it to herself, turning her head
occasionally to look up at the organ where Katy was presiding. Others
too, there were, who turned their heads as the soft music began to fill
the church, and the heavy bass rolled up the aisles, making the floor
tremble beneath their feet and sending a thrill through every vein. It
was a skillful hand which swept the keys that night, for Katy played
with her whole soul—not the voluntary there before her in printed form,
nor any one thing she had ever heard, but taking parts of many things,
and mingling them with strains of her own improvising she filled the
house as it had never been filled before, playing a soft, sweet refrain
when she thought of Helen, then bursting into louder, fuller tones, when
she remembered Bethlehem’s Child and the song the angels sang, and then
as she recalled her own sad life since she knelt at the altar a happy
bride, the organ notes seemed much like human sobs, now rising to a
stormy pitch of passion, wild and uncontrolled, and then dying out as
dies the summer wind after a fearful storm. Awed and wonderstruck the
organ boy looked at Katy as she played, almost forgetting his part of
the performance in his amazement, and saying to himself when she had
finished,

“Guy, ain’t she a brick?” and whispering to her, “Didn’t we go that
strong?”

The people had wondered where Helen was, as, without the aid of music,
Katy led the children in their carols, and this wonder increased when it
was whispered round that “Miss Lennox had come, and was standing with a
_man_ back by the register.”

After this Aunt Betsy grew very calm, and could enjoy the distributing
of the gifts, going up herself two or three times, and wondering why
anybody should think of _her_, a good-for-nothing old woman. The skates
and the smelling bottle both went safely to Sylvia and John, while Mrs.
Deacon Bannister looked radiant when her name was called and she was
made the recipient of a jar of butternut pickles, such as only Aunt
Betsy Barlow could make.

“_Miss Helen Lennox._ A soldier in uniform, from one of her
Sunday-school scholars,”

The words rang out loud and clear, as the Rector held up the sugar toy
before the amused audience, who turned to look at Helen, blushing so
painfully, and trying to hold back the man in a soldier’s dress who went
quietly up the aisle, receiving the gift with a bow and smile which
turned the heads of half the ladies near him, and then went back to
Helen, to whom he whispered something which made her cheeks grow
brighter than they were before, while she dropped her eyes modestly.

“Who is he?” a woman asked, touching Aunt Betsy’s shoulder.

“Captain Ray, from New York,” was the answer, as Aunt Betsy gave to her
dress a little broader sweep, and smoothed the bow she had tried to tie
beneath her chin, just as Mattie Tubbs had tied it on the memorable
opera night.

The tree, by this time, was nearly empty. Every child had been
remembered, save one, and that the organ boy, who, separated from his
companions, stood near Helen, watching the tree wistfully, while shadows
of hope and disappointment passed alternately over his face, as one
after another the presents were distributed and nothing came to him.

“There ain’t a darned thing on it for me,” he exclaimed at last, when
boy nature could endure no longer; and Mark turned towards him just in
time to see the gathering mist, which but for the most heroic efforts
would have merged into tears.

“Poor Billy!” Helen said, as she too heard his comment, “I fear he _has_
been forgotten. His teacher is absent, and he so faithful at the organ
too.”

Mark knew now who the boy was, and after a hurried consultation with
Helen, who suggested that _money_ would probably be more acceptable than
even skates or jack-knives, neither of which were possible now, folded
something in a bit of paper, on which he wrote a name, and then sent it
to the Rector.

“Billy Brown, our faithful organ boy,” sounded through the church; and
with a brightened face Billy went up the aisle and received the little
package, ascertaining before he reached his standpoint near the door,
that he was the owner of a five dollar bill, and mentally deciding to
add both peanuts and molasses candy to the stock of apples he daily
carried into the cars.

“_You_ gin me this,” he said, nodding to Mark, “and you,” turning to
Helen, “poked him up to it.”

“Well then, if I did,” Mark replied, laying his hand on the boy’s coarse
hair, “you must take good care of Miss Lennox when I am gone. I leave
her in your charge. She is to be my wife.”

“Gorry, I thought so;” and Bill’s cap went towards the plastering, just
as the last string of pop-corn was given from the tree, and the
exercises were about to close.

It was not in Aunt Betsy’s nature to keep her secret till this time; and
simultaneously with Billy’s going up for his gift, she whispered it to
her neighbor, who whispered it to hers, who whispered it to hers, until
nearly all the audience knew of it, and kept their seats after the
benediction was pronounced.

At a sign from the rector, Katy went with her mother to the altar,
followed by Uncle Ephraim, his wife, and Aunt Betsy, while Helen,
throwing off the cloud she had worn upon her head, and giving it, with
her cloak and fur, into Billy’s charge, took Mark’s arm, and with
beating heart and burning cheeks passed between the sea of eyes fixed so
curiously upon her, up to where Katy once stood on the June morning,
when she had been the bride. Not now, as then, were aching hearts
present at the bridal. No Marian Hazelton fainted by the door; no Morris
felt the world grow dark and desolate as the marriage vows were spoken;
and no sister doubted if it were all right and would end in happiness.

The ceremony lasted but a few moments, and then the astonished audience
pressed around the bride, offering their kindly congratulations, and
proving to Mark Ray that the bride he had won was dear to others as well
as to himself. Lovingly he drew her hand beneath his arm, fondly he
looked down upon her as he led her back to her chair by the register,
making her sit down while he tied on her cloak, and adjusted the fur
about her neck.

“Handy and gentle as a woman,” was the verdict pronounced upon him by
the female portion of the congregation, as they passed out into the
street, talking of the ceremony, and contrasting Helen’s husband with
the haughty Wilford, who was not a favorite with them.

It was Billy Brown who brought Mark’s cutter round, and held the reins,
while Mark helped Helen in, and then he tucked the buffalo robes about
her with the remark, “It’s all-fired cold, Miss Ray. Shall you play in
church to-morrow?”

Assured that she would, Billy walked away, and Mark was alone with his
bride, and slowly following the deacon’s sleigh, which reached the
farm-house a long time before the little cutter, so that a fire was
already kindled in the parlor when Helen arrived, and also in the
kitchen stove, where the tea-kettle was boiling; for Aunt Betsy said
“the chap should have some supper before he went back to York.”

Four hours he had to stay, and they were spent in talking of himself, of
Wilford, and of Morris, and in planning Helen’s future. Of course she
would spend a portion of her time at the farm-house, he said; but his
mother had a claim upon her, and it was his wish that she should be in
New York as much as possible.

Swiftly the last moments went by, and a “Merry Christmas” was said by
one and another as they took their seats at the plentiful repast Aunt
Betsy had provided, Mark feasting more on Helen’s face than on the
viands spread before him. It was hard for him to leave her, hard for her
to let him go; but the duty was imperative, and so when at last the
frosty air grew keener as the small hours of night crept on, he stood
with his arms about her, nor thought it unworthy of a soldier that his
own tears mingled with hers, as he bade her good-bye, kissing her again
and again, and calling her his precious wife, whose memory would make
his camp life brighter, and shorten the days of absence. There was no
one with them, when at last Mark’s horse dashed from the yard over the
creaking snow, leaving Helen alone upon the doorstep, with the
glittering stars shining above her head, and her husband’s farewell kiss
wet upon her lips.

“When shall we meet again?” she sobbed, gazing up at the clear blue sky,
as if to find the answer there.

But only the December wind sweeping down from the steep hillside, and
blowing across her forehead, made reply to that questioning, as she
waited till the last faint sound of Mark Ray’s bells died away in the
distance, and then, shivering with cold, re-entered the farm-house.




                             CHAPTER XLII.
                          AFTER CHRISTMAS EVE.


Merrily rang the bells next day, but Helen’s heart was very sad as she
met the smiling faces of her friends, and Mark had never been prayed for
more earnestly than on that Christmas morning, when Helen knelt at the
altar rail, and received the sacred symbols of a Saviour’s dying love,
asking that God would keep the soldier husband, hastening on to New
York, and from thence to Washington. Much the Silvertonians discussed
the wedding, and had Helen been the queen, she could hardly have been
stared at more curiously than she was that Christmas day, when late in
the afternoon she drove through the town with Katy, the villagers
looking admiringly after her, noting the tie of her bonnet, the
arrangement of her face trimmings, and discovering in both style and
fitness they had never discovered before. As the wife of Mark Ray, Helen
became suddenly a heroine, in whose presence poor Katy subsided
completely; nor was the interest at all diminished when, two days later,
Mrs. Banker came to Silverton and was met at the depot by Helen, whom
she hugged affectionately, calling her “my dear daughter,” and holding
her hand all the way to the covered sleigh waiting there for her.

Mrs. Banker was very fond of Helen; and not even the sight of the
farm-house, with its unpolished inmates, awakened a feeling of regret
that her only son had not looked higher for a wife. She was satisfied
with her new daughter, and insisted upon taking her back to New York.

“I am very lonely now, lonelier than you can possibly be,” she said to
Mrs. Lennox, “and you will not refuse her to me for a few weeks at
least. It will do us both good, and make the time of Mark’s absence so
much shorter.”

“Yes, mother, let Helen go. I will try to fill her place,” Katy said,
though while she said it her heart throbbed with pain and dread as she
thought how desolate she should be without her sister.

But it was right, and Katy urged Helen’s going, bearing up bravely so
long as Helen was in sight, but shedding bitter tears when at last she
was gone, tears which were only stayed when kind old Uncle Ephraim
offered to take her to the little grave, where, from experience, he knew
she always found rest and peace. The winter snows were on it now, but
Katy knew just where the daisies were, and the blue violets which with
the spring would bloom again, feeling comforted as she thought of that
eternal spring in the bright world above, where her child had gone. And
so that night, when they gathered again around the fire in the pleasant
little parlor, the mother and the old people did not miss Helen half so
much as they had feared they might, for Katy sang her sweetest songs and
wore her sunniest smile, while she told them of Helen’s new home, and
talked of whatever else she thought would interest and please them.

“Little Sunbeam,” Uncle Ephraim called her now, instead of “Katy-did,”
and in his prayer that first night of Helen’s absence he asked, in his
touching way, “that God would bless his little Sunbeam, and not let her
grow tired of living there alone with folks so odd and old.”

                  *       *       *       *       *

“MARRIED—On Christmas Eve, at St. John’s Church, Silverton, Mass., by
the Rev. Mr. Kelly, Capt. MARK RAY, of the —th Regiment, N. Y. S. Vols.,
to MISS HELEN LENNOX, of Silverton.”

Such was the announcement which appeared in several of the New York
papers two days after Christmas, and such the announcement which Bell
Cameron read at the breakfast table on the morning of the day when Mrs.
Banker started for Silverton.

“Here is something which will perhaps interest _you_,” she said, passing
the paper to Juno, who had come down late, and was looking cross and
jaded from the effects of last night’s dissipation.

Taking the paper from her sister’s hand, Juno glanced at the paragraph
indicated by Bell; then, as she caught Mark’s name, she glanced again
with a startled, incredulous look, her cheeks and lips turning white as
she read that Mark Ray was lost to her forever, and that in spite of the
stolen letter Helen Lennox was his wife.

“What is it, Juno?” Mrs. Cameron asked, noticing her daughter’s
agitation.

Juno told her what it was, and then handing her the paper let her read
it for herself.

“Impossible! there is some mistake! How was it brought about?” Mrs.
Cameron said, darting a curious glance at Bell, whose face betrayed
nothing as she leisurely sipped her coffee and remarked, “I always
thought it would come to this, for I knew he liked her. It is a splendid
match.”

Whatever Juno thought she kept it to herself, just as she kept her room
the entire day, complaining of a racking headache, and ordering the
curtains to be dropped, as the light hurt her eyes, she said to Bell,
who, really pitying her now, never suggested that the darkened room was
more to hide her tears than to save her eyes, and who sent away all
callers with the message that Juno was sick—all but Sybil Grandon, who
insisted so hard upon seeing her _dear friend_ that she was admitted to
Juno’s room, talking at once of the wedding, and making every one of
Juno’s nerves quiver with pain as she descanted upon the splendid match
it was for Helen, or indeed for any girl.

“I had given you to him,” she said, “but I see I was mistaken. It was
Helen he preferred, unless you jilted him, as perhaps you did.”

Here was a temptation Juno could not resist, and she replied, haughtily,

“I am not one to boast of conquests, but ask Captain Ray himself if you
wish to know why I did not marry him.”

Sybil Grandon was not deceived, but she good-naturedly suffered that
young lady to hope she was, and answered, laughingly, “I can’t say I
honor your judgment in refusing him, but you know best. However, I trust
that will not prevent your friendly advances towards his bride. Mrs.
Banker has gone after her, I understand, and I want you to call with me
as soon as convenient. _Mrs. Mark Ray_ will be the belle of the season,
depend upon it,” and gathering up her furs Mrs. Grandon kissed Juno
affectionately and then swept from the room.

That Mrs. Cameron had hunted for and failed to find the stolen letter,
and that she associated its disappearance with Mark Ray’s sudden
marriage, Bell was very sure, from the dark, anxious look upon her face
when she came from her room, whither she had repaired immediately after
breakfast; but whatever her suspicions were, they did not find form in
words. Mark was lost. It was too late to help that now, and as a politic
woman of the world, Mrs. Cameron decided to let the matter rest, and by
_patronizing_ the young bride prove that she had never thought of Mark
Ray for her son-in-law. Hence it was that the Cameron carriage and the
Grandon carriage stood together before Mrs. Banker’s door, while the
ladies who had come in the carriages paid their respects to Mrs. Ray,
rallying her upon the march she had stolen upon them, telling her how
delighted they were to have her back again, and hoping they should see
each other a great deal during the coming winter.

The Camerons and Sybil Grandon were not alone in calling upon the bride.
Those who had liked Helen Lennox did not find her less desirable now
that she was Helen Ray, and numberless were the attentions bestowed upon
her and the invitations she received.

But with few exceptions Helen declined the latter, feeling that with her
husband in so much danger, it was better not to mingle in gay society.
She was very happy with Mrs. Banker, who petted and caressed and loved
her almost as much as if she had been her own daughter. Mark’s letters,
too, which came nearly every day, were bright sun-spots in her
existence, so full were they of tender love and kind thoughtfulness for
her. He was very happy, he wrote, in knowing that at home there was a
dear little brown-haired wife, waiting and praying for him, and but for
the separation from her he was well content with a soldier’s life. Once
Helen thought seriously of going to him for a week or more, but, the
project was prevented by the sudden arrival in New York of Katy, who
came one night to Mrs. Banker’s, with her face as white as ashes, and a
wild expression in her eyes as she said to Helen,

“I am going to Wilford. He is dying. He has sent for me. I ought to go
on to-night, but cannot, my head aches so,” and pressing both her hands
upon her head Katy sank fainting into Helen’s arms.




                             CHAPTER XLIII.
                          GEORGETOWN HOSPITAL.


                                            GEORGETOWN, February—, 1862.

  MRS. WILFORD CAMERON:

  “Your husband cannot live long. Come immediately.

                                                           M. HAZELTON.”

So read the telegram received by Katy one winter morning, and which
stunned her for a few minutes so that she could neither feel nor think.
But the reaction came soon enough, bringing with it only the remembrance
of Wilford’s love. All the wrong, the harshness, was forgotten, and only
the desire remained to fly at once to Wilford. Bravely she kept up until
New York was reached, when the tension of her nerves gave way, and she
fainted, as we have seen.

At Father Cameron’s a telegram had been received, telling of Wilford’s
danger. But the mother could not go to him. A lung difficulty, to which
she was subject, had confined her to the house for many days, and so it
was the father and Bell who made their hasty preparations for the
hurried journey to Georgetown. They heard of Katy’s arrival, and Bell
came at once to see her.

“She will not be able to join us to-morrow,” was the report Bell carried
home, for she saw more than mere exhaustion in the white face lying so
motionless on Helen’s pillow, with the dark rings about the eyes, and
the quiver of the muscles about the mouth.

“It is very hard, but God knows best,” poor Katy moaned, when the next
day her father and Bell went without her.

“Yes, darling, God knows best,” Helen answered, smoothing the bright
hair, and thinking sadly of the young officer sitting by his camp-fire,
and waiting so eagerly for the bride who could not go to him now. “God
knows what is best, and does all for the best.”

Katy said it many times that long, long week, during which she stayed
with Helen, living from day to day upon the letters sent by Bell, who
gave but little hope that Wilford would recover. Not a word did she say
of Marian, and only twice did she mention Morris, who was one of the
physicians in that hospital, so that when at last Katy was strong enough
to venture on the journey, she had but little idea of what had
transpired in Wilford’s sick room.

                  *       *       *       *       *

Those were sad, weary days which Wilford first passed upon his hospital
cot, and as he was not sick but crippled, he had ample time for
reviewing the past, which came up before his mind as vividly as if he
had been living again the scenes of bygone days. Of Katy he thought
continually, repenting of his rashness, and wishing so much that the
past could be undone. Disgusted with soldier life, he had wished himself
at home a thousand times, but never by a word had he admitted such a
wish to any living being, and when, on the dark, rainy afternoon which
first saw him in the hospital, he turned his face to the wall and wept,
he replied to one who said to him soothingly,

“Don’t feel badly, my young friend. We will take as good care of you
here as if you were at home.”

“It’s the pain which brings the tears. I’d as soon be here as at home.”

Gradually, however, there came a change, and Wilford grew softer in his
feelings, half resolving to send for Katy, who had offered to come, and
to whom he had replied, “It is not necessary.” But as often as he
resolved, his evil genius whispered, “She does not care to come,” and so
the message was never sent, while the longing for home faces brought on
a nervous fever, which made him so irritable that his attendants turned
from him in disgust, thinking him the most unreasonable man they ever
met with. Once he dreamed Genevra was there—that her fingers threaded
his hair as they used to do in the happy days at Brighton—that her hand
was on his brow, her breath upon his face, and with a start he awoke,
just as the rustle of female garments died away in the hall.

“The nurse in the second ward has been in here,” a comrade said. “She
seemed specially interested in you, and if she had not been a stranger,
I should have said she was crying over you.”

With a quick, sudden movement, Wilford put his hand to his cheek, where
there was a tear, either his own or that of the “nurse,” who had
recently bent over him. Retaining the same proud reserve which had
characterized his whole life, he asked no questions, but listened to
what his companions were saying of the beauty and tenderness of the
“young girl,” as they called her, who had glided for a few moments into
their presence, winning their hearts in that short space of time, and
making them wish she would come back again. Wilford wished so too,
conjuring up all sorts of conjectures about the unknown nurse, and once
going so far as to fancy it was Katy herself. But Katy would hardly
venture there as nurse, and if she did she would not keep aloof from
him. It was not Katy, and if not, who was it that twice when he was
sleeping came and looked at him, his comrades said, rallying him upon
the conquest he had made, and so exciting his imagination that the fever
began to increase, and the blood throbbed hotly through his veins, while
his brows were knit together with thoughts of the mysterious stranger.
Then, with a great shock it occurred to him that Katy had affirmed,
“_Genevra_ is alive.”

What if it were so, and this nurse were Genevra? The very idea fired
Wilford’s brain, and when next his physician came he looked with alarm
upon the great change for the worse exhibited by his patient.

“Shall I send for your friends?” he asked, and Wilford answered,
savagely,

“I have no friends—none at least, but what will be glad to know I’m
dead.”

And that was the last, except the wild words of a maniac, which came
from Wilford’s lips for many a day and night. When they said he was
unconscious, Marian Hazelton obtained permission to attend him, and
again the eyes of the other occupants of the room were turned
wonderingly towards her as she bent over the sick man, parting his
matted hair, smoothing his pillow, and holding the cooling draught to
the parched lips which muttered strange things of Brighton, of Alnwick
and Rome—of the heather on the Scottish moors, and the daisies on
Genevra’s grave, where Katy once sat down.

“She did not know Genevra was there,” he said; “but I knew, and I felt
as if the dead were wronged by that act of Katy’s. Do _you_ know Katy?”
and his black eyes fastened upon Marian, who soothed him into quiet,
while she talked to him of Katy, telling of her graceful beauty, her
loving heart, and the sorrow she would feel when she heard how sick he
was.

“Shall I send for her?” she asked, but Wilford answered,

“No, I am satisfied with you.”

This was her first day with him, but there were other days when all her
strength, and that of Morris, who, at her earnest solicitation, came to
her aid, was required to keep him on his bed. He was going home, he
said, going to Katy; and like a giant he writhed under a force superior
to his own, and which held him down and controlled him, while his loud
outcries filled the building, and sent a shudder to the hearts of those
who heard them. As the two men, who at first had occupied the room with
him, were well enough to leave for home, Marian and Morris both begged
that, unless absolutely necessary, no other one should be sent to that
small apartment, where all the air was needed for the patient in their
charge. And thus the room was left alone for Wilford, who grew worse so
fast that Marian telegraphed to Katy, bidding her come at once.

                  *       *       *       *       *

Slowly the wintry night was passing, the fifth since Marian’s message
was sent to Katy, and Morris sat by Wilford’s cot, when suddenly he met
Wilford’s eyes fixed upon him with a look of recognition he could not
mistake.

“Do you know me?” he asked so kindly, and with so much of genuine
sympathy in his voice, that the heavy eyelids quivered for an instant,
as Wilford nodded his head, and whispered,

“Dr. Grant.”

There had been a momentary flash of resentment when he saw the watcher
beside him, but Wilford was too weak, too helpless to cherish that
feeling long, and besides there were floating through his still
bewildered mind visions of some friendly hand, which had ministered to
him daily—of a voice and form, distinct from the one he thought an
angel’s, and which was not there now with him. That voice, that form, he
felt sure belonged to Morris Grant, and remembering his past harshness
toward him, a chord of gratitude was touched, and when Morris took his
hand he did not at once withdraw it, but let his long, white fingers
cling around the warm, vigorous ones, which seemed to impart new life
and strength.

“You have been very sick,” Morris said, anticipating the question
Wilford would ask. “You are very sick still, and at the request of your
nurse I came to attend you.”

A pressure of the hand was Wilford’s reply, and then there was silence
between them, while Wilford mastered all his pride, and with quivering
lips whispered,

“_Katy!_”

“We have sent for her. We expect her every train,” Morris replied, and
Wilford asked,

“Who has been with me—the nurse, I mean? Who is she?”

Morris hesitated a moment, and then said,

“Marian Hazelton.”

“I know—yes,” Wilford replied, having no suspicion as to _who_ was
standing outside his door, and listening, with a throbbing heart, to his
rational questions.

In all their vigils held together no sign had ever passed from Dr. Grant
to Marian that he knew her, but he had waited anxiously for this moment,
knowing that Wilford must not be shocked, as a sight of Marian would
shock him. He knew she was outside the door, and as Wilford turned his
head upon the pillow, he went to her, and leading her to a safe
distance, said softly,

“His reason has returned.”

“And my services are ended,” Marian rejoined, looking him steadily in
the face, but not in the least prepared for his affirmative question.

“You are _Genevra Lambert_?”

There was a low, gasping sound of surprise, and Marian staggered forward
a step or two, then steadying herself, she said,

“And if I am, it surely is not best for him to see me. You would not
advise it?”

She looked wistfully at Morris, the great desire to be recognized, to be
spoken to kindly by the man who once had been her husband overmastering
for a moment all her prudence.

“It would not be best, both for his sake and _Katy’s_,” Morris said, and
with a moan like the dying out of her last hope, Marian turned away, her
eyes dim with tears and her heart heavy with a sense of something lost,
as in the gray dawn of the morning she went back to her former patients,
who hailed her coming with childish joy, one fair young boy from the
Granite hills kissing the hand which bandaged his poor crushed arm so
tenderly, and thanking her that she had returned to him again.

                  *       *       *       *       *

“Mr. J. Cameron, Miss Bell Cameron,” were the names on the cards sent to
Dr. Grant late that afternoon, and in a few moments he was with the
father and sister who asked so anxiously for Wilford and explained why
Katy was not with them.

Wilford was sleeping when they entered his room, his face looking so
worn and thin, and his hands folded so helplessly upon his breast, that
with a gush of tears Bell knelt beside him, and laying her warm cheek
against his bony one, woke him with her sobs. For a moment he seemed
bewildered, then recognizing her, he raised his feeble arm and winding
it about her neck, kissed her more tenderly than he had ever done
before. He had not been demonstrative of his affection for his sisters.
But Bell was his favorite, and he held her close to him while his eyes
moved past his father, whom he did not see, on to the door as if in
quest of someone. It was Katy, and guessing his thoughts, Bell said,

“She is not here. She could not come now. She is sick in New York, but
will join us in a few days.”

There was a look of intense disappointment in Wilford’s face, which even
his father’s warm greeting could not dissipate, and Morris saw the great
tears as they dropped upon the pillow, the proud man trying hard to
repress them, and asking no questions concerning any one at home. He was
too weak to talk, but he held Bell’s hand in his as if afraid that she
would leave him, while his eyes rested alternately upon her face and
that of his father, who, wholly unmanned at the fearful change in his
son, laid his head upon the bed and cried aloud.

Next morning Bell was very white and her voice trembled as she came from
a conference with Dr. Morris, who had told her that her brother would
die.

“He may live a week, and he may not,” he said, adding solemnly, “As his
sister you will tell him of his danger, while there is time to seek the
refuge without which death is terrible.”

“Oh, if I could only pray with and for him!” Bell thought, as she went
to her brother, mourning her misspent days, and feeling her courage
giving way when at last she stood in his presence and met his kindly
smile.

“I dreamed that you were not here after all,” he said, “I am so glad to
find it real. How long before I can go home, do you suppose?”

He had stumbled upon the very thing Bell was there to talk about, his
question indicating that he had no suspicion of the truth. Nor had he;
and it came like a thunderbolt when Bell, forgetting all her prudence,
said impetuously,

“Oh, Wilford, maybe you’ll never go home. Maybe you’ll——”

“_Not die_,” Wilford exclaimed, clasping his hands with sudden emotion.
“Not die—you don’t mean that? Who told you so?”

“Dr. Grant,” was Bell’s reply, which brought a fierce frown to Wilford’s
face, and awoke all the angry passions of his heart.

“Dr. Grant,” he repeated. “He would like me removed from his path; but
it shall not be. I will not die. Tell him that. I will not die,” and
Wilford’s voice was hoarse with passion as he raised his clenched fists
in the air.

He was terribly excited, and in her fright Bell ran for Dr. Grant. But
Wilford motioned him back, hurling after him words which kept him from
the room the entire day, while the sick man rolled, and tossed, and
raved in the delirium, which had returned, and which wore him out so
fast. No one had the least influence over him, except Marian Hazelton,
who, without a glance at Mr. Cameron or Bell, glided to his side, and
with her presence and gentle words soothed him into comparative quiet,
so that the bitter denunciations against the _saint_, who wanted him to
die, ceased, and he fell into a troubled sleep.

With a strange feeling of interest Mr. Cameron and Bell watched her,
wondering if she were indeed Genevra, as Katy had affirmed. They would
not ask her; and both breathed more freely when, with a bow in
acknowledgment of Mr. Cameron’s compliment to her skill in quieting his
son, she left the room.

That night they watched with Wilford, who slept off his delirium, and
lay with his face turned from them, so that they could not guess by its
expression what was passing in his mind.

All the next day he maintained the most frigid silence, answering only
in monosyllables, while Bell kept wiping away the great drops of sweat
constantly oozing out upon his forehead and about the pallid lips.

Just at nightfall he startled Bell by asking that Dr. Grant be sent for.

“Please leave me alone with him,” he said, when Dr. Morris came; then
turning to Morris, as the door closed upon his father and his sister, he
said abruptly,

“Pray for me, if you can pray for one who yesterday hated you so for
saying he must die.”

Earnestly, fervently, Morris prayed, as for a dear brother; and when he
finished, Wilford’s faint “Amen” sounded through the room.

“I am not right yet,” the pale lips whispered, as Morris sat down beside
him. “Not right with God, I mean. I’ve sometimes said there was no God;
but I did not believe it; and now I know there is. He has been moving
upon me all the day, driving out my bitterness toward you, and causing
me to send for you at last. Do you think there is hope for me? I have
much to be forgiven.”

“Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be white as snow,” Morris
replied; and then he tried to point that erring man to the Lamb of God,
who taketh away the sins of the world, convincing him that there _was_
hope even for him, and leaving him with the conviction that God would
surely finish the good work begun, nor suffer this soul to be lost which
had turned to Him at the eleventh hour.

Wilford knew his days were numbered, and he talked freely of it to his
father and sister the next morning when they came to him. He did not say
that he was ready or willing to die, only that he must, and he asked
them to forget, when he was gone, all that had ever been amiss in him as
a son and brother.

“I was too proud, too selfish, to make others happy,” he said, “I
thought it all over yesterday, and the past came back again so vividly,
especially the part connected with Katy. Oh, Katy, I did abuse her!” and
a bitter sob attested the genuineness of Wilford’s grief for his
treatment of Katy. “I despised her family, I treated them with contempt.
I broke Katy’s heart, and now I must die without telling her I am sorry.
But you’ll tell her, Bell, how I tried to pray, but could not for
thoughts of my sin to her. She will not be glad that I am dead. I know
her better than to think that; and I believe she loves me. But, after I
am gone, and the duties of the world have closed up the gap I shall
leave, I see a brighter future for her than her past has been; and you
may tell her I am——” He could not say, “I am willing.” Few husbands
could have done so then, and he was not an exception.

Wholly exhausted, he lay quiet for a moment, and when he spoke again, it
was of _Genevra_. Even here he did not try to screen himself. He was the
one to blame, he said, Genevra was true, was innocent, as he ascertained
too late.

“Would you like to see her, if she was living?” came to Bell’s lips; but
the fear that it would be too great a shock, prevented their utterance.

He had no suspicion of her presence; and it was best he should not. Katy
was the one uppermost in his mind; and in the letter Bell sent to her
next day, he tried to write, “Good-bye, my darling;” but the words were
scarcely legible, and his nerveless hand fell helpless at his side as he
said,

“She will never know the effort it cost me, nor hear me say that I hope
I am forgiven. It came to me last night; and now the way is not so dark,
but Katy will not know.”




                             CHAPTER XLIV.
                              LAST HOURS.


Katy _would know_; for she was coming at last. A telegram had announced
that she was on the road; and with nervous restlessness Wilford asked
repeatedly what time it was, reducing the hours to minutes, and counting
his own pulses to see if he could last so long.

“Save me, Doctor,” he whispered to Morris, “keep me alive till Katy
comes. I must see Katy again.”

And Morris, tenderer than a brother, did all he could to keep the feeble
breath from going out ere Katy came.

The train was due at five; but it was dark in the hospital, and from
every window a light was shining, when Morris carried, rather than led,
a quivering figure up the stairs and through the hall to the room where
the Camerons were, the father standing at the foot of Wilford’s bed, and
Bell bending over his pillow, administering the stimulants which kept
her brother alive. When Katy came in, she moved away, as did her father,
while Morris too stepped back into the hall; and thus the husband and
wife were left alone.

“Katy, precious Katy, you have forgiven me?” Wilford whispered, and the
rain of tears and kisses on his face was Katy’s answer as she hung over
him.

She had forgiven him, and she told him so when she found voice to talk,
wondering to find him so changed from the proud, exacting,
self-worshiping man to the humble, repentant and self-accusing person,
who took all blame of the past to himself, and exonerated her from every
fault. But when he drew her close to him, and whispered something in her
ear, she knew whence came the change, and a reverent “Thank the good
Father,” dropped from her lips.

“The way was dark and thorny,” Wilford said, making her sit down where
he could see her as he talked, “and only for God’s goodness I should
have lost the path. But he sent Morris Grant to point the road, and I
trust I am in it now. I wanted to tell you with my own lips how sorry I
am for what I have made you suffer; but sorriest of all for sending Baby
away. Oh, Katy, you do not know how that rested upon my conscience.
Forgive me, Katy, that I robbed you of your child.”

He was growing very weak, and he looked so white and ghastly that Katy
called for Bell, who came with her father, and the three stood together
around the bedside of the dying.

“You will remember me, Katy,” he said, “but you cannot mourn for me
always, and sometime in the future you will cease to be my _widow_, and,
Katy, I am willing. I wanted to tell you this, so that no thought of me
should keep you from a life where you will be happier than I have made
you.”

Wholly bewildered, Katy made no reply, and Wilford was silent a few
moments, in which he seemed partially asleep. Then rousing up, he said,

“You said once that Genevra was not dead. Did you mean it, Katy?”

Frightened and bewildered, Katy turned appealingly to her father-in-law,
who answered for her, “She meant it—Genevra is not dead,” while a
blood-red flush stained Wilford’s face, and his fingers beat the
bedspread thoughtfully.

“I fancied once that she was here—that she was the nurse the boys praise
so much. But that was a delusion,” he said, and without a thought of the
result, Katy asked impetuously, “if she were here would you care to see
her?”

There was a startled look on Wilford’s face, and he grasped Katy’s hand
nervously, his frame trembling with a dread of the great shock which he
felt impending over him.

“Is she here? Was the nurse Genevra?” he asked. Then, as his mind went
back to the past, he answered his own question by asserting “Marian
Hazelton is Genevra.”

They did not contradict him, nor did he ask to see her. With Katy there
he felt he had better not; but after a moment he continued, “It is all
so strange. I thought her dead. I do not comprehend how it can be. She
has been kind to me. Tell her I thank her for it. I was unjust to her. I
have much to answer for.”

Between each word he uttered there was a gasp for breath, and Father
Cameron opened the window to admit the cool night air. But nothing had
power to revive him. He was going very fast, Morris said, as he took his
stand by the bedside and watched the approach of death. There were no
convulsive struggles, only heavy breathings, which grew farther and
farther apart, until at last Wilford drew Katy close to him, and winding
his arm around her neck, whispered,

“I am almost home, my darling, and all is well. Be kind to Genevra for
my sake. I loved her once, but not as I love you.”

He never spoke again, and a few minutes later Morris led Katy from the
room, and then went out to give orders for the embalming.

                  *       *       *       *       *

In the little room she called her own, Marian Hazelton sat, her
beautiful hair disordered, and her eyes dim with the tears she had shed.
She knew that Wilford was dead, and as if his dying had brought back all
her olden love she wept bitterly for the man who had so darkened her
life. She had not expected to see him with Katy present; but now that it
was over she might go to him. There could be no harm in that. No one but
Morris would know who she was, she thought, when there came a timid
knock upon her door, and Katy entered, her face very pale, and her
manner very calm, as she came to Marian, and kneeling down beside her,
laid her head in her lap with the air of a weary child who has sought
its mother for rest.

“Poor little Katy!” Marian said; “your husband, they tell me, is dead.”

“Yes;” and Katy lifted up her head, and fixing her eyes earnestly upon
Marian, continued, “Wilford is dead. but before he died he left a
message for _Genevra Lambert_. Will she hear it now?”

With a sudden start Marian sprang to her feet, and demanded, “Who told
_you_ of Genevra Lambert?”

“Wilford told me months ago, showing me her picture, which I readily
recognized, and I have pitied you so much, knowing you were innocent.
Wilford thought you were dead,” Katy said, flinching a little before
Marian’s burning gaze, which fascinated even while it startled her.

It is not often that two women meet bearing to each other the relations
these two bore, and it is not strange that both felt constrained and
embarrassed as they stood looking at each other. As Marian’s was the
stronger nature, so she was the first to rally, and with the tears
swimming in her eyes she drew Katy closely to her, and said,

“Now that he is gone I am glad you know it. Mine has been a sad life,
but God has helped me to bear it. You say he believed me dead. Sometime
I will tell you how that came about; but now, his message,—he left one,
you say?”

Carefully Katy repeated every word Wilford had said, and with a gasping
cry Marian wound her arms around her neck, exclaiming,

“And you _will_ love me, because I have suffered so much. You will let
me call you Katy when we are alone. It brings you nearer to me.”

Marian was now the weaker of the two, and it was Katy’s task to comfort
her, as sinking back in her chair she sobbed,

“He did love me once. He acknowledged it at the last, before them all,
his wife, his father and his sister. Do they know?” she suddenly asked,
and when assured that they did, she relapsed into a silent mood, while
Katy stole quietly out and left her there alone.

Half an hour later and a female form passed hurriedly through the hall
and across the threshold into the chamber where the dead man lay. There
was no one with him now, and Marian was free to weep out the pent-up
sorrow of her life, which she did with choking sobs and passionate words
poured into the ear, deaf to every human sound. A step upon the floor
startled her, and turning round she stood face to face with Wilford’s
father, who was regarding her with a look which she mistook for one of
reproof and displeasure that she should be there.

“Forgive me,” she said; “he was my husband once, and surely now that he
is dead you will not begrudge me a few last moments with him for the
sake of the days when he loved me.”

There were many tender chords in the heart of Father Cameron, and
offering Marian his hand, he said,

“Far be it from me to refuse you this privilege. I pity you, Genevra; I
believe he dealt unjustly by you,—but I will not censure him now that he
is gone. He was my only boy. Oh, Wilford, Wilford! you have left me very
lonely.”

He released her hand, and Marian fled away, meeting next with Bell, who
felt that she must speak to her, but was puzzled what to say. Bell could
not define her feelings towards Marian, or why she shrunk from
approaching her. It was not pride, but rather a feeling of prejudice, as
if Marian were in some way to blame for all the trouble which had come
to them, while her peculiar position as the divorced wife of her brother
made it the more embarrassing. But she could not resist the mute
pleading of the eyes lifted so tearfully to her, as if asking for a nod
of recognition, and stopping before her she said, softly,

“_Genevra._”

That was all, but it made Genevra’s tears flow in torrents, and she
involuntarily held her hand out to Bell, who took it, and holding it
between her own, said,

“You were very kind to my brother. I thank you for it, and will tell my
mother, who will feel so grateful to you.”

This was a good deal for Bell to say, and after it was said, she
hastened away while Marian went on her daily round of duties, speaking
softer if possible to her patients that day, and causing them to wonder
what had come over that sweet face to make it so white and tear-stained.
That night in Marian’s room Katy sat and listened to what she did not
before know of the strange story kept from her so long. Marian confirmed
all Wilford had told, breathing no word of blame against him now that he
was dead, only stating facts, and leaving Katy to draw her own
conclusions.

“I knew that I was handsome,” she said, “and I liked to test my power;
but for that weakness I have been sorely punished. I had not at first
any intention of making him believe that I was dead, and when I sent the
paper containing the announcement of father’s death, I was not aware
that it also contained the death of my cousin, a beautiful girl just my
age, who bore our grand-mother’s name of Genevra, and about whom and a
young English lord, who had hunted one season in her father’s
neighborhood, there were some scandalous reports. Afterwards it occurred
to me that Wilford would see that notice, and naturally think it
referred to me, inasmuch as he knew nothing of my cousin Genevra.

“It was just as well, I said—I _was_ dead to him, and I took a strange
satisfaction in wondering if he would care. Incidentally I heard that
the postmaster at Alnwick had been written to by an American gentleman,
who asked if such a person as _Genevra Lambert_ was buried at St.
Mary’s; and then I knew he believed me dead, even though the name
appended to the letter was not Wilford Cameron, nor was the writing his;
for, as the cousin of the dead Genevra, I asked to see the letter, and
my request was granted. It was Mrs. Cameron who wrote it, I am sure,
signing a feigned name and bidding the postmaster answer to that
address. He did so, assuring the inquirer that Genevra Lambert was
buried there, and wondering to me if the young American who seemed
interested in her could have been a lover of the unfortunate girl.

“I was now alone in the world, for the aunt with whom my childhood was
passed died soon after my father, and so I went at last to learn a trade
on the Isle of Wight, emigrating from thence to New York, with the
determination in my rebellious heart that sometime, when it would cut
the deepest, I would show myself to the proud Camerons, whom I so
cordially hated. This was before God had found me, or rather before I
had listened to the still, small voice which took the hard, vindictive
feelings away, and made me feel kindly towards the mother and sisters
when I saw them, as I often used to do, driving gayly by. Wilford was
sometimes with them, and the sight of him always sent the hot blood
surging through my heart. But the greatest shock I ever had came to me
when I heard from your sister of his approaching marriage with you.
Those were terrible days that I passed at the farm-house, working on
your bridal trousseau; and sometimes I thought it more than I could
bear. Had you been other than the little, loving, confiding, trustful
girl you were, I must have disclosed the whole, and told that you would
not be the first who had stood at the altar with Wilford. But pity for
you kept me silent, and you became his wife.

“I loved your baby almost as much as if it had been my own, and when it
died there was nothing to bind me to the North, and so I came here,
where I hope I have done some good; at least I was here to care for
Wilford, and that is a sufficient reward for all the toil which falls to
the lot of a hospital nurse. I shall stay until the war is ended, and
then go I know not where. It will not be best for us to meet very often,
for though we respect each other, neither can forget the past, nor that
one was the lawful, the other the divorced wife of the same man. I have
loved you, Katy Cameron, for your uniform kindness shown to the poor
dressmaker. I shall always love you, but our paths lie widely apart.
Your future I can predict, but mine God only knows.”

Marian had said all she meant to say, and all Katy came to hear. The
latter was to leave in the morning, and when they would meet again
neither could tell. Few were the parting words they spoke, for the great
common sorrow welling up from their hearts; but when at last they said
good-bye, the bond of friendship between them was more strongly cemented
than ever, and Katy long remembered Marian’s parting words,

“God bless you, Katy Cameron! You have been a bright, sun spot in my
existence since I first knew you, even though you have stirred some of
the worst impulses of my nature. I am a better woman for having known
you. God bless you, Katy Cameron!”




                              CHAPTER XLV.
                               MOURNING.


The grand funeral which Mrs. Cameron once had planned for Katy was a
reality at last, but the breathless form lying so cold and still in the
darkened room at No. — Fifth Avenue, was that of a soldier embalmed—an
only son brought back to his father’s house amid sadness and tears. They
had taken him there rather than to his own house, because it was the
wish of his mother, who, however hard and selfish she might be to
others, had idolized her son, and mourned for him truly, forgetting in
her grief to care how grand the funeral was, and feeling only a passing
twinge when told that _Mrs. Lennox_ had come from Silverton to pay the
last tribute of respect to her late son-in-law. Some little comfort it
was to have her boy lauded as a faithful soldier, and to hear the
commendations lavished upon him during the time he lay in state, with
his uniform around him; but when the whole was over, and in the gray of
the wintry afternoon her husband returned from Greenwood, there came
over her a feeling of such desolation as she had never known—a feeling
which drove her at last to the little room upstairs, where sat a lonely
man, his head bowed upon his hands, and his tears dropping silently upon
the hearth-stone as he, too, thought of the vacant parlor below and the
new grave at Greenwood.

“Oh, husband, comfort me!” fell from her lips as she tottered to her
husband, who opened his arms to receive her, forgetting all the years
which had made her the cold, proud woman, who needed no sympathy, and
remembering only that bright green summer when she was first his bride,
and came to him for comfort in every little grievance, just as now she
came in this great, crushing sorrow.

He did not tell her she was reaping what she had sown, that but for her
pride and deception concerning Genevra, Wilford might never have gone to
the war, or they been without a son. He did not reproach her at all, but
soothed her tenderly, calling her by her maiden name, and awkwardly
smoothing her hair, silvered now with gray, and feeling for a moment
that Wilford had not died in vain, if by his dying he gave back to his
father the wife so lost during the many years since fashion and folly
had been the idols she worshiped. But the habits of years could not be
lightly broken, and Mrs. Cameron’s mind soon became absorbed in the
richness of her mourning, and the strict etiquette of her mourning days.
To Katy she was very kind, caressing her with unwonted affection, and
scarcely suffering her to leave her sight, much less to stay for a day
at Mrs. Banker’s, where Katy secretly preferred to be. Of Genevra, too,
she talked with Katy, and at her instigation wrote a friendly letter,
thanking _Mrs. Lambert_ for all her kindness to her son, expressing her
sorrow that she had ever been so unjust to her, and sending her a
handsome locket, containing on one side a lock of Wilford’s hair, and on
the other his picture, taken from a large sized photograph. Mrs. Cameron
felt herself a very good woman after she had done all this, together
with receiving Mrs. Lennox at her own house, and entertaining her for
one whole day; but at heart there was no real change, and as time passed
on she gradually fell back into her old ways of thinking, and went no
more for comfort to her husband as she had on that first night after the
burial.

With Mr. Cameron the blow struck deeper, and his Wall Street friends
talked together of the old man he had grown since Wilford died, while
Katy often found him bending over his long-neglected Bible, as he sat
alone in his room at night. And when at last she ventured to speak to
him upon the all-important subject, he put his hand in hers, and bade
her teach him the narrow way which she had found, and wherein Wilford
too had walked at the very last, they hoped.

For many weeks Katy lingered in New York, and the June roses were
blooming when she went back to Silverton, a widow and the rightful owner
of all Wilford’s ample fortune. They had found among his papers a will,
drawn up and executed not long before his illness, and in which Katy was
made his heir, without condition or stipulation. All was hers to do with
as she pleased, and Katy wept passionately when she heard how generous
Wilford had been. Then, as she thought of Marian and the life of poverty
before her, she crept to Father Cameron’s side, and said to him,
pleadingly,

“Let _Genevra_ share it with me. She needs it quite as much.”

Father Cameron would not permit Katy to divide equally with Marian. It
was not just, he said; but he did not object to a few thousands going to
her, and before Katy left New York for Silverton, she wrote a long, kind
letter to Marian, presenting her with ten thousand dollars, which she
begged her to accept, not so much as a gift, but as her rightful due.
There was a moment’s hesitancy on the part of Marian when she read the
letter, a feeling that she could not take so much from Katy; but when
she looked at the pale sufferers around her, and remembered how many
wretched hearts that money would help to cheer, she said,

“I will keep it.”




                             CHAPTER XLVI.
                           PRISONERS OF WAR.


The heat, the smoke, the thunder of the battle were over, and the fields
of Gettysburg were drenched with human blood and covered with the dead
and dying. The contest had been fearful, and its results carried sorrow
and anguish to many a heart waiting for tidings from the war, and
looking so anxiously for the names of the loved ones who, on the
anniversary of the day which saw our nation’s Independence, lay upon the
hills and plains of Gettysburg, their white faces upturned to the summer
sky, and wet with the rain=drops, which, like tears for the noble dead,
the pitying clouds had shed upon them. And nowhere, perhaps, was there a
whiter face or a more anxious heart than at the farm-house, where both
Helen and her mother-in-law were spending the hot July days. Since the
Christmas eve when Helen had watched her husband going from her across
the wintry snow, he had not been back, though several times he had made
arrangements to do so. Something, however, had always happened to
prevent. Once it was sickness which kept him in bed for a week or more;
again his regiment was ordered to advance, and the third time it was
sent on with others to repel the invaders from Pennsylvanian soil.
Bravely through each disappointment Helen bore herself, but her cheek
always grew paler and her eye darker in its hue when the evening papers
came, and she read what progress our soldiery had made, feeling that a
battle was inevitable, and praying so earnestly that Mark Ray might be
spared. Then, when the battle was over and up the northern hills came
the dreadful story of thousands and thousands slain, there was a fearful
look in her eye, and her features were rigid as marble, while the
quivering lips could scarcely pray for the great fear tugging at her
heart. Mark Ray was not with his men when they came from that terrific
onslaught. A dozen had seen him fall, struck down by a rebel ball, and
that was all she heard for more than a week, when there came another
relay of news.

Captain Mark Ray was a prisoner of war, with several of his own company.
An inmate of Libby Prison and a sharer from choice of the apartment
where his men were confined. As an officer he was entitled to better
quarters; but Mark Ray had a large, warm heart, and he would not desert
those who had been so faithful to him, and so he took their fare, and by
his genial humor and unwavering cheerfulness kept many a heart from
fainting, and made the prison life more bearable than it could have been
without him. To young Tom Tubbs, who had enlisted six months before, he
was a ministering angel, and many times the poor homesick boy crept to
the side of his captain, and laying his burning head in his lap, wept
himself to sleep and dreamed he was at home again. The horrors of that
prison life have never been told, but Mark bore up manfully, suffering
less in mind, perhaps, than did the friends at home, who lived, as it
were, a thousand years in that one brief summer while he remained in
Richmond.

At last, as the frosty days of October came on, they began to hope he
might be exchanged, and Helen’s face grew bright again, until one day
there came a soiled, half-worn letter, in Mark’s own handwriting. It was
the first word received from _him_ since his capture in July, and with a
cry of joy Helen snatched it from Uncle Ephraim, for she was still at
the farm-house, and sitting down upon the doorstep just where she had
been standing, read the words which Mark had sent to her. He was very
well, he said, and had been all the time, but he pined for home, longing
for the dear girl-wife never so dear as now, when separated by so many
miles, with prison walls on every side, and an enemy’s line between
them.

“But be of good cheer, darling,” he wrote, “I shall come back to you
some time, and life will be all the brighter for what you suffer now. I
am so glad my darling consented to be my wife, even though I could stay
with her but a moment. The knowing you are really mine makes me happy
even here, for I think of you by day, and in my dreams I always hold you
in my arms and press you to my heart.”

A hint he gave of being sent further south, and then hope died out of
Helen’s heart.

“I shall never see him again,” she said despairingly; and when the
message came that Mark had been removed, and that too just at the time
when an exchange was constantly expected, she gave him up as lost,
feeling almost as much widowed as Katy in her weeds.

Slowly the winter passed away, and the country was rife with stories of
our men, daily dying by hundreds, while those who survived were reduced
to maniacs or imbeciles. And Helen, as she listened, grew nearly frantic
with the sickening suspense. She did not know now where her husband was.
He had made several attempts to escape, and with each failure had been
removed to safer quarters, so that his chances for being exchanged
seemed very far away. Week after week, month after month passed on,
until came the memorable battle of the Wilderness, when Lieutenant Bob,
as yet unharmed, stood bravely in the thickest of the tight, his tall
figure towering above the rest, and his soldier’s uniform buttoned over
a dark tress of hair, and a face like Bell Cameron’s. Lieutenant Bob had
taken two or three furloughs; but the one which had left the sweetest,
pleasantest memory in his heart, was that of the autumn before, when the
crimson leaves of the maple, and the golden tints of the beech, were
burning themselves out on the hills of Silverton, where his furlough was
mostly passed, and where with Bell Cameron he scoured the length and
breadth of Uncle Ephraim’s farm, now stopping by the shore of Fairy
Point and again sitting for hours on a ledge of rocks, far up the hill,
where beneath the softly whispering pines, nodding above their heads,
Bell gathered the light-brown cones, and said to him the words he had so
thirsted to hear.

Much of Bell’s time was passed with Katy, at the farm-house, and here
Lieutenant Reynolds found her, accepting readily of Uncle Ephraim’s
hearty invitation to remain, and spending his entire vacation there with
the exception of three days, given to his family. Perfectly charmed with
quaint Aunt Betsy, he flattered and courted her almost as much as he did
Bell, but did not take her with him in his long rambles over the hills,
or sit with her at night alone in the parlor until the clock struck
twelve—a habit which Aunt Betsy greatly disapproved, but overlooked for
this once, seeing, as she said, that

“The young leftenant was none of her _kin_, and _Isabel_ only a little.”

Those were halcyon days which Robert passed at Silverton but one stood
out prominently before him, whether sitting before his camp-fire or
plunging into the battle; and that the one when, casting aside all pride
and foolish theories, Bell Cameron freely acknowledged her love for the
man to whom she had been so long engaged, and paid him back the kisses
she had before refused to give.

“I shall be a better soldier for this,” Robert had said, as he guided
her down the steep ledge of rocks, and with her hand in his, walked
slowly back to the farm-house, which, on the morrow, he left to take
again his place in the army.

There were no more furloughs for him after that; and the winter passed
away, bringing the spring again, when came that battle in the
Wilderness, where, like a hero, he fought until, becoming separated from
his comrades, he fell into the enemy’s hands; and two days after, there
sped along the telegraphic wires to New York,

“Lieutenant Robert Reynolds, captured the first day of the battle.”

Afterwards came news that Andersonville was his destination, together
with many others made prisoners that day.

“It is better than being shot, and a great deal better than being
burned, as some of the poor wretches were,” Juno said, trying to comfort
Bell, who doubted a little her sister’s word.

True there was now the shadow of a hope that he might return; but the
probabilities were against it; and Bell’s face grew almost as white as
Helen’s, while her eyes acquired that restless, watchful, anxious look
which has crept into the eyes of so many sorrowing women, looking away
to the southward, where the dear ones were dying.




                             CHAPTER XLVII.
                             DOCTOR GRANT.


Morris had served out his time as surgeon in the army, had added to it
an extra six months; and by his humanity, his skill, and Christian
kindness, made for himself a name which would be long remembered by the
living to whom he had ministered so carefully; while many a dying
soldier had blessed him for pointing out the way which leadeth to the
life everlasting; and in many a mourning family his name was a household
word, for the good he had done to a dying son and brother. But Morris’s
hospital work was over. He had gone a little too far, and incurred too
much risk, until his own strength had failed; and now, in the month of
June, when Linwood was bright with the early summer blossoms, he was
coming back with health greatly impaired, and a dark cloud before his
vision, so that he could not see how beautiful his home was looking, or
gaze into the faces of those who waited so anxiously to welcome their
beloved physician. _Blind_ some said he was; but the few lines sent to
Helen, announcing the day of his arrival, contradicted that report. His
eyes were very much diseased, his amanuensis wrote; but he trusted that
the pure air of his native hills, and the influence of old scenes and
associations would soon effect a cure. “If not too much trouble,” he
added, “please see that the house is made comfortable, and have John
meet me on Friday at the station.”

Helen was glad Morris was coming home, for he always did her good; he
could comfort her better than any one else, unless it were Katy, whose
loving, gentle words of hope were very soothing to her.

“Poor Morris!” she sighed, as she finished his letter, and then took it
to the family, who were sitting upon the pleasant piazza, which, at
Katy’s expense and her own, had been added to the house, and overlooked
Fairy Pond and the pleasant hills beyond.

“Morris is coming home,” she said. “He will be here on Friday, and he
wishes us to see that all things are in order at Linwood for his
reception. His eyes are badly diseased, but he hopes that coming back to
us will cure him,” she added, glancing at Katy, who sat upon a step of
the piazza, her hands folded together upon her lap, and her blue eyes
looking far off into the fading sunset.

When she heard Morris’s name, she turned her head a little, so that the
ripple of her golden hair was more distinctly visible beneath the silken
net she wore; but she made no comment nor showed by any sign that she
heard what they were saying. Katy was very lovely and consistent in her
young widowhood, and not a whisper of gossip had the Silvertonians
coupled with her name since she came to them, leaving her husband in
Greenwood. There had been no parading of her grief before the public, or
assumption of greater sorrow than many others had known; but the
soberness of her demeanor, and the calm, subdued expression of her face,
attested to what she had suffered. Sixteen months had passed since
Wilford died, and she still wore her deep mourning weeds, except the
widow’s cap, which, at her mother’s and Aunt Betsy’s earnest
solicitations, she had laid aside, substituting in its place a simple
net, which confined her waving hair and kept it from breaking out in
flowing curls, as it was disposed to do.

Katy had never been prettier than she was now, in her mature womanhood,
and to the poor and sorrowful whose homes she cheered so often she was
an angel of goodness.

Truly she had been purified by suffering; the dross had been burned out,
and only the gold remained, shedding its brightness on all with which it
came in contact.

They would miss her at the farm-house now more than they did when she
first went away, for she made the sunshine of their home, filling
Helen’s place when she was in New York, and when she came back proving
to her a stay and comforter. Indeed, but for Katy’s presence Helen often
felt that she could not endure the sickening suspense and doubt which
hung so darkly over her husband’s fate.

“He is alive; he _will_ come back,” Katy always said, and from her
perfect faith Helen, too, caught a glimpse of hope.

Could they have forgotten Mark they would have been very happy at the
farm-house now, for with the budding spring and blossoming summer Katy’s
spirits had returned, and her old musical laugh rang through the house
just as it used to do in the happy days of girlhood, while the same
silvery voice which led the choir in the brick church, and sang with the
little children their Sunday hymns, often broke forth into snatches of
songs, which made even the robins listen, as they built their nests in
the trees.

If Katy thought of Morris, she never spoke of him when she could help
it. It was a morbid fancy to which she clung, that duty to Wilford’s
memory required her to avoid the man who had so innocently come between
them; and when she heard he was coming home she felt more pain than
pleasure, though for an instant the blood throbbed through her veins as
she thought of Morris at Linwood, just as he used to be.

The day of his return was balmy and beautiful, and at an early hour
Helen went over to Linwood to see that everything was in order for his
arrival, while Katy followed at a later hour, wondering if Wilford would
object if he knew she was going to welcome Morris, who might misconstrue
her motives if she stayed away.

There was very little for her to do, Helen and Mrs. Hull having done all
that was necessary, but she went from room to room, lingering longest in
Morris’s own apartment, where she made some alterations in the
arrangement of the furniture, putting one chair a little more to the
right, and pushing a stand or table to the left, just as her artistic
eye dictated. By some oversight no flowers had been put in there, but
Katy gathered a bouquet and left it on the mantel, just where she
remembered to have seen flowers when Morris was at home.

“He will be tired,” she said. “He will lie down after dinner,” and she
laid a few sweet English violets upon his pillow, thinking their perfume
might be grateful to him after the pent-up air of the hospital and cars.
“He will think Helen put them there, or Mrs. Hull,” she thought, as she
stole softly out and shut the door behind her, glancing next at the
clock, and feeling a little impatient that a whole hour must elapse
before they could expect him.

Poor Morris! he did not dream how anxiously he was waited for at home,
nor of the crowd assembled at the depot to welcome back the loved
physician, whose name they had so often heard coupled with praise as a
true hero, even though his post was not in the front of the battle.
Thousands had been cared for by him, their gaping wounds dressed
skillfully, their aching heads soothed tenderly, and their last moments
made happier by the words he spoke to them of the world to which they
were going, where there is no more war or shedding of man’s blood. In
the churchyard at Silverton there were three soldiers’ graves, whose
pale occupants had died with Dr. Grant’s hand held tightly in theirs, as
if afraid that he would leave them before the dark river was crossed,
while in more than one Silverton home there was a wasted soldier, who
never tired of telling Dr. Morris’s praise and dwelling on his goodness.
But Dr. Morris was not thinking of this as, faint and sick, with the
green shade before his eyes, he leaned against the pile of shawls his
companion had placed for his back, and wondered if they were almost
there.

“I smell the pond lilies; we must be near Silverton,” he said, and a
sigh escaped him as he thought of coming home and not being able to
_see_ it or the woods and fields around it. “Thy will be done,” he had
said many times since the fear first crept into his heart that for him
the light had faded.

But now, when home was almost reached, and he began to breathe the air
from the New England hills and the perfume of the New England lilies,
the flesh rebelled again, and he cried out within himself, “Oh, I cannot
be blind! God will not deal thus by me!” while keen as the cut of a
sharpened knife was the pang with which he thought of Katy, and wondered
would she care if he were blind.

Just then the long train stopped at Silverton, and, led by his
attendant, he stepped feebly into the crowd, which sent up deafening
cheers for Dr. Grant come home again. At the sight of his helplessness,
however; a feeling of awe fell upon them, and whispering to each other,
“I did not suppose he was so bad,” they pressed around him, offering
their hands and inquiring anxiously how he was.

“I have been sick, but I shall get better now. The very sound of your
friendly voices does me good,” he said, as he went slowly to his
carriage, led by Uncle Ephraim, who could not keep back his tears when
he saw how weak Morris was, and how he panted for breath as he leaned
back among the cushions.

It was very pleasant that afternoon, and Morris enjoyed the drive so
much, assuring Uncle Ephraim, that he was growing better every moment.
He did seem stronger when the carriage stopped at Linwood, and he went
up the steps where Helen, Katy, and Mrs. Hull were waiting for him. He
could not by sight distinguish one from the other, but without the aid
of her voice he would have known when Katy’s hand was put in his, it was
so small, so soft, and trembled so as he held it. She forgot Wilford in
her excitement. Pity was the strongest feeling of which she was
conscious, and it manifested itself in various ways.

“Let _me_ lead you, Cousin Morris,” she said, as she saw him groping his
way to his room, and without waiting for his reply, she held his hand
again in hers and led him to his room, where the English violets were.

“I used to lead _you_,” Morris said, as he took his seat by the window,
“and I little thought then that you would one day return the compliment.
It is very hard to be blind.”

The tone of his voice was inexpressibly sad, but his smile was as
cheerful as ever as his face turned towards Katy, who could not answer
for her tears. It seemed so terrible to see a strong man so stricken,
and that strong man Morris—terrible to watch him in his helplessness,
trying to appear as of old, so as to cast on others no part of the
shadow resting so darkly on himself. When dinner was over and the sun
began to decline, many of his former friends came in; but he looked so
pale and weary that they did not tarry long, and when the last one was
gone, Morris was led back to his room, which he did not leave again
until the summer was over, and the luscious fruits of September were
ripening upon the trees.

Towards the middle of July, Helen, whose health was suffering from her
anxiety concerning Mark, was taken by Mrs. Banker to Nahant, where
Mark’s sister, Mrs. Ernst, was spending the summer, and thus on Katy
fell the duty of paying to Morris those acts of sisterly attention such
as no other member of the family knew how to pay. In the room where he
lay so helpless Katy was not afraid of him, nor did she deem herself
faithless to Wilford’s memory, because each day found her at Linwood,
sometimes bathing Morris’s inflamed eyes, sometimes bringing him the
cooling drink, and again reading to him by the hour, until, soothed by
the music of her voice, he would fall away to sleep and dream he heard
the angels sing.

“My eyes are getting better,” he said to her one day toward the latter
part of August, when she came as usual to his room. “I knew last night
that Mrs. Hull’s dress was blue, and I saw the sun shine through the
shutters. Very soon, I hope to see you, Katy, and know if you have
changed.”

She was standing close by him, and as he talked he raised his hand to
rest it on her head, but, with a sudden movement, Katy eluded the touch,
and stepped a little further from him.

When next she went to Linwood there was in her manner a shade of
dignity, which both amused and interested Morris. He did not know for
certain that Wilford had told Katy of the confession made that memorable
night when her recovery seemed so doubtful, but he more than half
suspected it from the shyness of her manner, and from the various
excuses she began to make for not coming to Linwood as often as she had
heretofore done.

In his great pity for Katy when she was first a widow, Morris had
scarcely remembered that she was free, or if it did flash upon his mind,
he thrust the thought aside as injustice to the dead; but as the months
and the year went by, and he heard constantly from Helen of Katy’s
increasing cheerfulness, it was not in his nature never to think of what
might be, and more than once he had prayed, that if consistent with his
Father’s will, the woman he had loved so well, should yet be his. If
not, he could go his way alone, just as he had always done, knowing that
it was right.

Such was the state of Morris’s mind when he returned from Washington,
but now it was somewhat different. The weary weeks of sickness, during
which Katy had ministered to him so kindly, had not been without their
effect, and if Morris had loved the frolicsome, child-like Katy Lennox,
he loved far more the gentle, beautiful woman, whose character had been
so wonderfully developed by suffering, and who was more worthy of his
love than in her early girlhood.

“I cannot lose her now,” was the thought constantly in Morris’s mind, as
he experienced more and more how desolate were the days which did not
bring her to him. “It is twenty months since Wilford died,” he said to
himself one wet October afternoon, when he sat listening dreamily to the
patter of the rain falling upon the windows, and looking occasionally
across the fields to the farm-house, in the hope of spying in the
distance the little airy form, which, in its water-proof and cloud, had
braved worse storms than this at the time he was so ill.

But no such figure appeared. He hardly expected it would; but he watched
the pathway just the same, and the smoke-wreaths rising so high above
the farm-house. The deacon burned out his chimney that day, and Morris,
whose sight had greatly improved of late, knew it by the dense, black
volume of smoke, mingled with rings of fire, which rose above the roof,
remembering so well another rainy day, twenty years ago, when the
deacon’s chimney was cleaned, and a little toddling girl, in scarlet
gown and white pinafore, had amused herself with throwing into the
blazing fire upon the hearth a straw at a time, almost upsetting herself
with standing so far back, and making such efforts to reach the flames.
A great deal had passed since then. The little girl in the pinafore had
been both wife and mother. She was a widow now, and Morris glanced
across his hearth toward the empty chair he had never seen in
imagination filled by any but herself.

“Surely, she would some day be his own,” and leaning his head upon the
cane he carried, he prayed earnestly for the good he coveted, keeping
his head down so long that, until it had left the strip of woods and
emerged into the open fields, he did not see the figure wrapped in
water-proof and hood, with a huge umbrella over its head and a basket
upon its arm, which came picking its way daintily toward the house,
stopping occasionally, and lifting up the little high-heeled Balmoral,
which the mud was ruining so completely. Katy was coming to Linwood. It
had been baking-day at the farm-house, and remembering how much Morris
used to love her custards, Aunt Betsy had prepared him some, and asked
Katy to take them over, so he could have them for tea.

“The rain won’t hurt you an atom,” she said as Katy began to demur, and
glance at the lowering sky. “You can wear your water-proof boots and my
shaker, if you like, and I do so want Morris to have them to-night.”

Thus importuned, Katy consented to go, but declined the loan of Aunt
Betsy’s shaker, which being large of the kind, and capeless, too, was
not the most becoming head-gear a woman could wear. With the basket of
custards, and cup of jelly, Katy finally started, Aunt Betsy saying to
her, as she stopped to take up her dress, “It must be dretful lonesome
for Morris to-day. S’posin’ you stay to supper with him, and when it’s
growin’ dark I’ll come over for you. You’ll find the custards fust
rate.”

Katy made no reply, and walked away, while Aunt Betsy went back to the
coat she was patching for her brother, saying to herself,

“I’m bound to fetch that round. It’s a shame for two young folks, just
fitted to each other, to live apart when they might be so happy, with
Hannah, and Lucy, and me, close by, to see to ’em, and allus make their
soap, and see to the butcherin’, besides savin’ peneryle and catnip for
the children, if there was any.”

Aunt Betsy had turned match-maker in her old age, and day and night she
planned how to bring about the match between Morris and Katy. That they
were made for each other, she had no doubt. From something which Helen
inadvertently let fall, she had guessed that Morris loved Katy prior to
her marriage with Wilford. She had suspected as much before; she was
sure of it now, and straightway put her wits to work “to make it go,” as
she expressed it. But Katy was too shy to suit her, and since Morris’s
convalescence, had stayed too much from Linwood. To-day, however, Aunt
Betsy “felt it in her bones,” that if properly managed something would
happen, and the custards were but the means to the desired end. With no
suspicion whatever of the good dame’s intentions, Katy picked her way to
Linwood, and leaving her damp garments in the hall, went at once into
the library, where Morris was sitting near to a large chair kept sacred
for her, his face looking unusually cheerful, and the room unusually
pleasant, with the bright wood fire on the hearth.

“I have been so lonely, with no company but the rain,” he said, pushing
the chair a little towards her, and bidding her sit near the fire, where
she could dry her feet.

Katy obeyed, and sat down so near to him that had he chosen he might
have touched the golden hair, fastened in heavy coils low on her neck,
and giving to her a very girlish appearance, as Morris thought, for he
could see her now, and while she dried her feet he looked at her
eagerly, wondering that the fierce storm she had encountered had left so
few traces upon her face. Just about the mouth there was a deep cut
line, but this was all; the remainder of the face was fair and smooth as
in her early girlhood, and far more beautiful, just as her character was
lovelier, and more to be admired.

Morris had done well to wait if he could win her now. Perhaps he thought
so, too, and this was why his spirits became so gay as he kept talking
to her, suggesting at last that she should stay to tea. The rain was
falling in torrents when he made the proposition. She could not go then,
even had she wished it, and though it was earlier than his usual time,
Morris at once rang for Mrs. Hull, and ordered that tea be served as
soon as possible.

“I ought not to stay. It is not proper,” Katy kept thinking, as she
fidgeted in her chair, and watched the girl setting the table for two,
and occasionally deferring some debatable point to her as if she were
mistress there.

“You can go now, Reekie,” Morris said, when the boiling water was poured
into the silver kettle, and tea was on the table. “If we need you we
will ring.”

With a vague wonder as to who would toast the doctor’s bread, and butter
it, Reekie departed, and the two were left together. It was Katy who
toasted the bread, kneeling upon the hearth, burning her face and
scorching the bread in her nervousness at the novel position in which
she so unexpectedly found herself. It was Katy, too, who prepared
Morris’s tea, and tried to eat, but could not. She was not hungry, she
said, and the custard was the only thing she tasted, besides the tea,
which she sipped at frequent intervals so as to make Morris think she
was eating more than she was. But Morris was not deceived, nor
disheartened. Possibly she suspected his intention, and if so, the
sooner he reached the point the better. So when the tea equipage was put
away, and she began again to speak of going home, he said,

“No, Katy, you can’t go yet, till I have said what’s in my mind to say,”
and laying his hand upon her shoulder he made her sit down beside him
and listen while he told her of the love he had borne for her long
before she knew the meaning of that word as she knew it now—of the
struggle to keep that love in bounds after its indulgence was a sin; of
his temptations and victories, of his sincere regret for Wilford, and of
his deep respect for her grief, which made her for a time as a sister to
him. But that time had passed. She was not his sister now, nor ever
could be again. She was Katy, dearer, more precious, more desired even
than before another called her wife, and he asked her to be his, to come
up there to Linwood and live with him, making the rainy days brighter,
balmier, than the sunniest had ever been, and helping him in his work of
caring for the poor and sick around them.

“Will Katy come? Will she be the wife of Cousin Morris?”

There was a world of pathos and pleading in the voice which asked this
question, just as there was a world of tenderness in the manner with
which Morris caressed and fondled the bowed head resting on the chair
arm. And Katy felt it all, understanding what it was to be offered such
a love as Morris offered, but only comprehending in part what it would
be to refuse that love. For her blinded judgment said she must refuse
it. Had there been no sad memories springing from that grave in
Greenwood, no bitter reminiscences connected with her married life—had
Wilford never heard of Morris’s love and taunted her with it, she might
perhaps consent, for she craved the rest there would be with Morris to
lean upon. But the happiness was too great for her to accept. It would
seem too much like faithlessness to Wilford, too much as if he had been
right, when he charged her with preferring Morris to himself.

“It cannot be;—oh, Morris, it cannot be,” she sobbed, when he pressed
her for an answer. “Don’t ask me why—don’t ever mention it again, for I
tell you it cannot be. My answer is final; it cannot be. I am sorry for
you, so sorry! I wish you had never loved me, for it cannot be.”

She writhed herself from the arms which tried to detain her, and rising
to her feet left the room suddenly, and throwing on her wrappings
quitted the house without another word, leaving basket and umbrella
behind, and never knowing she had left them, or how the rain was pouring
down upon her unsheltered person, until, as she entered the narrow strip
of woodland, she was met by Aunt Betsy, who exclaimed at seeing her, and
asked,

“What has become of your _umberell_? Your silk one too. It’s hopeful you
haven’t lost it. What has happened you?” and coming closer to Katy, Aunt
Betsy looked searchingly in her face. It was not so dark that she could
not see the traces of recent tears, and instinctively suspecting their
nature she continued, “Cather_ine_, have you gin Morris the mitten?”

“Aunt Betsy, is it possible that you and Morris contrived this plan?”
Katy asked, half indignantly, as she began in part to understand her
aunt’s great anxiety for her to visit Linwood that afternoon.

“Morris had nothing to do with it,” Aunt Betsy replied. “It was my
doin’s wholly, and this is the thanks I git. You quarrel with him and
git mad at me, who thought only of your good. Cather_ine_, you know you
like Morris Grant, and if he asked you to have him why don’t you?”

“I can’t, Aunt Betsy. I can’t, after all that has passed. It would be
unjust to Wilford.”

“Unjust to Wilford—fiddlesticks!” was Aunt Betsy’s expressive reply, as
she started on toward Linwood, saying, “she was going after the umberell
before it got lost, with nobody there to tend to things as they should
be tended to. Have you any word to send?” she asked, hoping Katy had
relented.

But Katy had not; and with a toss of her head, which shook the rain
drops from her capeless shaker, Aunt Betsy went on her way, and was soon
confronting Morris, sitting just where Katy had left him, and looking
very pale and sad.

He was not glad to see Aunt Betsy. He would rather be alone until such
time as he could control himself and still his throbbing heart. But with
his usual affability, he bade Aunt Betsy sit down, shivering a little
when he saw her in the chair where Katy had sat, her thin, angular body
presenting a striking contrast to the graceful, girlish figure which had
sat there an hour since, and the huge india rubbers she held up to the
fire, as unlike as possible to the boot of fairy dimensions he had
admired so much when it was drying on the hearth.

“I met Cather_ine_,” Aunt Betsy began, “and mistrusted at once that
something was to pay, for a girl don’t leave her umberell in such a rain
and go cryin’ home for nothin’.”

Morris colored, resenting for an instant this interference by a third
party; but Aunt Betsy was so honest and simple-hearted, that he could
not be angry long, and he listened calmly, while she continued,

“I have not lived sixty odd years for nothing, and I know the signs
pretty well. I’ve been through the mill myself.”

Here Aunt Betsy’s voice grew lower in its tone, and Morris looked up
with real interest, while she went on,

“There’s Joel Upham—you know Joel—keeps a tin-shop now, and seats the
folks in meetin’. He asked me once for my company, and to be smart I
told him _no_, when all the time I meant _yes_, thinkin’ he would ask
agin; but he didn’t, and the next I knew he was keepin’ company with
Patty Adams, now his wife. I remembered I sniveled a little at being
taken at my word, but it served me right, for saying one thing when I
meant another. However, it don’t matter now. Joel is as clever as the
day is long, but he is a shiftless critter, never splits his kindlins
till jest bedtime, and Patty is pestered to death for wood, while his
snorin’ nights she says is awful, and that I never could abide; so, on
the whole, I’m better off than Patty.”

Morris laughed a loud, hearty laugh, which emboldened his visitor to say
more than she had intended saying.

“You just ask her agin. Once ain’t nothing at all, and she’ll come to.
She likes you; ’taint that which made her say no. It’s some foolish idea
about faithfulness to Wilford, as if he deserved that she should be
faithful. They never orto have had one another,—never; and now that he
is well in Heaven, as I do suppose he is, it ain’t I who hanker for him
to come back. Neither does Katy, and all she needs is a little urging,
to tell you yes. So ask her again, will you?”

“I think it very doubtful. Katy knew what she was doing, and meant what
she said,” Morris replied; and with the consoling remark that if young
folks would be fools it was none of her business to bother with them,
Aunt Betsy pinned her shawl across her chest, and hunting up both basket
and umbrella, bade Morris good night, and went back across the fields to
the farm-house, hearing from Mrs. Lennox that Katy had gone to bed with
a racking headache.




                            CHAPTER XLVIII.
                                 KATY.


“Are you of the same mind still?” Helen asked, when three weeks later
she returned from New York, and at the hour for retiring sat in her
chamber watching Katy as she brushed her hair, occasionally curling a
tress around her fingers and letting it fall upon her snowy nightdress.

They had been talking of Morris, whom Katy had seen but once since that
rainy night, and that at church, where he had been the previous Sunday.
Katy had written an account of the transaction to her sister, who had
chosen to reply by word of mouth rather than by letter, and so the first
moment they were alone she seized the opportunity to ask if Katy was of
the same mind still as when she refused the doctor.

“Yes, why shouldn’t I be?” Katy replied. “You, better than any one else,
know what passed between Wilford——”

“Do you love Morris?” Helen asked, abruptly, without waiting for Katy to
finish her sentence.

For an instant the hands stopped in their work, and Katy’s eyes filled
with tears, which dropped into her lap as she replied,

“More than I wish I did, seeing I must always tell him no. It’s strange,
too, how the love for him keeps coming, in spite of all I can do. I have
not been there since, nor spoken with him until last Sunday, but I knew
the moment he entered the church, and when in the first chant I heard
his voice, my fingers trembled so that I could hardly play, while all
the time my heart goes out after the rest I always find with him. But it
cannot be. Oh, Helen! I wish Wilford had never known that Morris loved
me.”

She was sobbing now, with her head in Helen’s lap, and Helen, smoothing
her bright hair, said gently,

“You do not reason correctly. It is right for you to answer Morris yes,
and Wilford would say so, too. When I received your letter I read it to
Bell, who then told what Wilford said before he died. You must have
forgotten it, darling. He referred to a time when you would cease to be
his widow, and he said he was willing,—said so to her, and you. Do you
remember it, Katy?”

“I do now, but I _had_ forgotten. I was so stunned then, so bewildered,
that it made no impression. I did not think he meant Morris, Helen; _do_
you believe he meant Morris?” and lifting up her face Katy looked at her
sister with a wistfulness which told how anxiously she waited for the
answer.

“I _know_ that he meant Morris,” Helen replied. “Both Bell and her
father think so, and they bade me tell you to marry Dr. Grant, with whom
you will be so happy.”

“I cannot. It is too late. I told him no, and Helen, I told him a
falsehood, too, which I wish I might take back,” she added. “I said I
was sorry he ever loved me. when I was not, for the knowing that he
_had_ made me very happy. My conscience has smitten me cruelly for that
falsehood, told not intentionally, for I did not consider what I said.”

Here was an idea at which Helen caught at once, and the next morning she
went to Linwood and brought Morris home with her. He had been there two
or three times since his return from Washington, but not since Katy’s
refusal, and her cheeks were scarlet as she met him in the parlor and
tried to be natural. He did not look unhappy. He was not taking his
rejection very hard, after all, she thought, and the little lady felt a
very little piqued to find him so cheerful, when she had scarcely known
a moment’s quiet since the day she carried him the custards and forgot
to bring away her umbrella.

As it had rained that day, so it did now, a decided, energetic rain,
which set in after Morris came, and precluded the possibility of his
going home that night.

“He would catch his death of cold,” Aunt Betsy said, while Helen, too,
joined her entreaties, until Morris consented, and the carriage which
came round for him at dark returned to Linwood with the message that the
doctor would pass the night at Deacon Barlow’s.

During the evening he did not often address Katy directly, but he knew
each time she moved, and watched every expression of her face, feeling a
kind of pity for her, when, without appearing to do so intentionally,
the family, one by one, stole from the room,—Uncle Ephraim and Aunt
Hannah without any excuse; Aunt Betsy to mix the cakes for breakfast;
Mrs. Lennox to wind the clock, and Helen to find a book for which Morris
had asked.

Katy might not have thought strange of their departure, were it not that
neither one came back again, and after the lapse of ten minutes or more
she felt convinced that she had purposely been left alone with Morris.

The weather and the family had conspired against her, but after one
throb of fear she resolved to brave the difficulty, and meet whatever
might happen as became a woman of twenty-three, and a widow. She knew
Morris was regarding her intently as she fashioned into shape the coarse
wool sock, intended for some soldier, and she could almost hear her
heart beat in the silence which fell between them ere Morris said to
her, in a tone which reassured her,

“And so you told me a falsehood the other day, and your conscience has
troubled you ever since?”

“Yes, Morris, yes; that is, I told you I was sorry that you ever loved
me, which was not exactly true, for, after I knew you did, I was happier
than before.”

Her words implied a knowledge of his love previous to that night at
Linwood when he had himself confessed it, and he said to her
inquiringly,

“You knew it, then, before I told you?”

“From Wilford,—yes,” Katy faltered.

“I understand now why you have been so shy of me,” Morris said; “but,
Katy, must this shyness continue always? Think, now, and say if you did
not tell more than _one_ falsehood the other night,—as you count
falsehoods?”

Katy looked wonderingly at him, and he continued,

“You said you could not be my wife. Was that true? Can’t you take it
back, and give me a different answer?”

Katy’s cheeks were scarlet, and her hands had ceased to flutter about
the knitting which lay upon her lap.

“I meant what I said,” she whispered; “for, knowing how Wilford felt, it
would not be right for me to be so happy.”

“Then it’s nothing personal? If there were no harrowing memories of
Wilford, you could be happy with me. Is that it, Katy?” Morris asked,
coming close to her now, and imprisoning her hands, which she did not
try to take away, but let them lie in his as he continued, “Wilford was
willing at the last. Have you forgotten that?”

“I had, until Helen reminded me,” Katy replied. “But, Morris, the
talking of this thing brings Wilford’s death back so vividly, making it
seem but yesterday since I held his dying head.”

She was beginning to relent, Morris knew, and bending nearer to her he
said,

“It was not yesterday. It will be two years in February; and this, you
know, is November. I need you, Katy. I want you so much. I have wanted
you all your life. Before it was wrong to do so, I used each day to pray
that God would give you to me, and now I feel just as sure that he has
opened the way for you to come to me as I am sure that Wilford is in
heaven. He is happy there, and shall a morbid fancy keep you from being
happy here? Tell me, then, Katy, will you be my wife?”

He was kissing her cold hands, and as he did so he felt her tears
dropping on his hair.

“If I say yes, Morris, you will not think that I never loved Wilford,
for I did, oh, yes! I did. Not exactly as I might have loved you, had
you asked me first, but I loved him, and I was happy with him, for if
there were little clouds, his dying swept them all away.”

Katy was proving herself a true woman, who remembered only the good
there was in Wilford, and Morris did not love her less for it. She was
all the dearer to him, all the more desirable, and he told her so,
winding his arms about her, and resting her head upon his shoulder,
where it lay just as it had never lain before, for with the first kiss
Morris gave her, calling her “My own little Katy,” she felt stealing
over her the same indescribable peace she had always felt with him,
intensified now, and sweeter from the knowing that it would remain if
she should will it so. And she did will it so, kissing Morris back when
he asked her to, and thus sealing the compact of her second betrothal.
It was not exactly like the first. There was no tumultuous emotions, or
ecstatic joys, but Katy felt in her inmost heart that she was happier
now than then; that between herself and Morris there was more affinity
than there had been between herself and Wilford, and as she looked back
over the road she had come, and remembered all Morris had been to her,
she wondered at her blindness in not recognizing and responding to the
love in which she had now found shelter.

It was very late that night when Katy went up to bed, and Helen, who was
not asleep, knew by the face on which the lamp-light fell that Morris
had not sued in vain. Aunt Betsy knew it, too, next morning, by the same
look on Katy’s face when she came down stairs, but this did not prevent
her saying abruptly, as Katy stood by the sink,

“Be you two engaged?”

“We are,” was Katy’s frank reply, which brought back all Aunt Betsy’s
visions of roasted fowls and frosted cake, and maybe a dance in the
kitchen, to say nothing of the feather bed which she had not dared to
offer Katy Cameron, but which she thought would come in play for “Miss
Dr. Grant.”




                             CHAPTER XLIX.
                             THE PRISONERS.


Many of the captives were coming home, and all along the Northern lines
loving hearts were waiting, and friendly hands outstretched to welcome
them back to “God’s land,” as the poor, suffering creatures termed the
soil over which waved the stars and stripes, for which they had fought
so bravely. Wistfully thousands of eyes ran over the long columns of
names of those returned, each eye seeking for its own, and growing dim
with tears as it failed to find it, or lighting up with untold joy when,
it was found.

“Lieut. Robert Reynolds,” and “Thomas Tubbs,” Helen read among the list
of those just arrived at Annapolis, but “Captain Mark Ray” was not
there, and, with a sickening feeling of disappointment, she passed the
paper to her mother-in-law, and hastened away, to weep and pray that
what she so greatly feared might not come upon her.

It was after Katy’s betrothal, and Helen was in New York, hoping to hear
news from Mark, and perhaps to see him ere long, for as nearly as she
could trace him from reports of others, he was last at Andersonville.
But there was no mention made of him, no sign by which she could tell
whether he still lived, or had long since been relieved from suffering.

Early next day she heard that Mattie Tubbs had received a telegram from
Tom, who would soon be at home, while later in the day Bell Cameron came
round to say that _Bob_ was living, but that he had lost his right arm,
and was otherwise badly crippled. It never occurred to Helen to ask if
this would make a difference. She only kissed Bell fondly, rejoicing at
her good fortune, and then sent her back to the home where there were
hot discussions regarding the propriety of receiving into the family a
maimed and crippled member.

“It was preposterous to suppose Bob would expect it,” Juno said, while
the mother admitted that it was a most unfortunate affair, as indeed the
whole war had proved. For her part she sometimes wished the North had
let the South go quietly, as they wanted to, and so saved thousands of
lives, and prevented the country from being flooded with cripples and
negroes, and calls for more men and money. On the whole, she doubted the
propriety of prolonging the war; and she certainly doubted the propriety
of giving her daughter to a cripple. There was Arthur Grey, who had
lately been so attentive; he was a wealthier man than Lieutenant Bob,
and if Bell had any discretion she would take him in preference to a
disfigured soldier.

Such was the purport’ of Mrs. Cameron’s remarks, to which her husband
listened, his eyes blazing with passion, which, the moment she finished,
burst forth in a storm of oaths and invectives against what, with his
pet adjective, he called her “Copperhead principles,” denouncing her as
a traitor, reproaching her for the cruelty which would separate her
daughter from Robert Reynolds, because he had lost an arm in the service
of his country; and then turning fiercely to Bell with the words,

“But it isn’t for you to say whether he shall or shall not have Bell.
She is of age. Let her speak for herself.”

And she did speak, the noble, heroic girl, who had listened, with bitter
scorn, to what her mother and sister said, and who now, with quivering
nostrils, and voice hoarse with emotion, answered slowly and
impressively,

“I would marry Lieutenant Reynolds if he had only his _ears_ left to
hear me tell him how much I love and honor him! Arthur Grey! Don’t talk
to me of him! the craven coward, who swore he was fifty to avoid the
draft.”

After this, no more was said to Bell, who, the moment she heard Bob was
at home, went to his father’s house and asked to see him.

He was sleeping when she entered his room; and pushing back the heavy
curtain, so that the light would fall more directly upon him, Mrs.
Reynolds went out and left her there alone.

With a beating heart she stood looking at his hollow eyes, his sunken
cheek, his short, dry hair, and thick gray skin, but did not think of
his arm, until she glanced at the wall, where hung a large sized
photograph, taken in full uniform, the last time he was at home, and in
which his well-developed figure showed to good advantage. Could it be
that the wreck before her had ever been as full of life and vigor as the
picture would indicate, and was that arm which held the sword severed
from the body, and left a token of the murderous war?

“Poor Bob! how much he must have suffered,” she whispered, and kneeling
down beside him she hid her face in her hands, weeping bitter tears for
her armless hero.

The motion awakened Robert, who gazed for a moment in surprise at the
kneeling, sobbing maiden; then when sure it was she, he raised himself
in bed, and ere Bell could look up, _two arms_, one quite as strong as
the other, were wound around her neck, and her head was pillowed upon
the breast, which heaved with strong emotions as the soldier said,

“My darling Bell, you don’t know how much good this meeting does me!”

He kissed her many times, and Bell did not prevent it, but gave him kiss
after kiss, then, still doubting the evidence of her eyes, she unclasped
his clinging arms, and holding both his poor hands in hers, gave vent to
a second gush of tears as she said,

“I am so glad—oh, so glad!”

Then, as it occurred to her that he might perhaps misjudge her, and put
a wrong construction upon her joy, she added,

“I did not care for myself, Robert. Don’t think I cared for myself, or
was ever sorry a bit on my own account.”

Bob looked a little bewildered as he replied, “Never were sorry and
never cared!—I can scarcely credit that, for surely your tears and
present emotions belie your words.”

Bell knew he had not understood her, and said,

“Your _arm_, Robert, your arm. We heard that it was cut off, and that
you were otherwise mutilated.”

“Oh, that’s it, then!” and something like his old mischievous smile
glimmered about Bob’s mouth as he added, “They spared my _arms_, but,
Bell,” and he tried to look very solemn, “suppose I tell you that they
hacked off both my legs, and if you marry me, you must walk all your
life by the side of _wooden pins_ and _crutches_!”

Bell knew by the curl of his lip that he was teasing her, and she
answered laughingly,

“Wooden pins and crutches will be all the fashion when the war is
over—badges of honor of which any woman might be proud.”

“Well, Bell,” he replied, “I am afraid there is no such honor in store
for my wife, for if I ever get back my strength and the flesh upon my
bones, she must take me with legs and arms included. Not even a scratch
or wound of any kind with which to awaken sympathy.”

He appeared very bright and cheerful; but when after a moment Bell asked
for Mark Ray, there came a shadow over his face, and with quivering lips
he told a tale which blanched Bell’s cheeks, and made her shiver with
pain and dread as she thought of Helen—for Mark _was dead_—shot down as
he attempted to escape from the train which took them from one prison to
another. He was always devising means of escape, succeeding several
times, but was immediately captured and brought back, or sent to some
closer quarter, Robert said; but his courage never deserted him, or his
spirits either. He was the life of them all, and by his presence kept
many a poor fellow from dying of homesickness and despair. But he was
dead; there could be no mistake, for Robert saw him when he jumped,
heard the ball which went whizzing after him, saw him as he fell on the
open field, saw a man from a rude dwelling near by go hurriedly towards
him, firing his own revolver, as if to make the death deed doubly sure.
Then as the train slacked its speed, with a view, perhaps, to take the
body on board, he heard the man who had reached Mark, and was bending
over him, call out, “Go on, I’ll tend to him, the bullet went right
through here;” and he turned the dead man’s face towards the train, so
all could see the blood pouring from the temple which the finger of the
ruffian touched.

“Oh, Helen! poor Helen! how can I tell her, when she loved him so much!”
Bell sobbed.

“You will do it better than any one else,” Bob said. “You will be very
tender with her; and, Bell, tell her, as some consolation, that he did
not break with the treatment, as most of us wretches did; he kept up
wonderfully—said he was perfectly well—and, indeed, he looked so. Tom
Tubbs, who was his shadow, clinging to him with wonderful fidelity, will
corroborate what I have said. He was with us; he saw him, and only
animal force prevented him from leaping from the car and going to him
where he fell. I shall never forget his shriek of agony at the sight of
that blood-stained face, turned an instant towards us.”

“Don’t, don’t!” Bell cried again; “I can’t endure it!” and as Mrs.
Reynolds came in she left her lover and started for Mrs. Banker’s,
meeting on the steps Tom Tubbs himself, who had come on an errand
similar to her own.

“Sit here in the hall a moment,” she said to him, as the servant
admitted them both. “I must see Mrs. Ray first.”

Helen was reading to her mother-in-law; but she laid down her book and
came to welcome Bell, detecting at once the agitation in her manner, and
asking if she had bad news from Robert.

“No, Robert is at home; I have just come from there, and he told me—oh!
Helen, can you bear it?—_Mark is dead_—shot twice as he jumped from the
train taking him to another prison. Robert saw it and knew that he was
dead.”

Bell could get no further, for Helen, who had never fainted in her life,
did so now, lying senseless so long that the physician began to think it
would be a mercy if she never came back to life, for her reason, he
fancied, had fled. But Helen did come back to life, with reason
unimpaired, and insisted upon hearing every detail of the dreadful
story, both from Bell and Tom. The latter confirmed all Lieutenant
Reynolds had said, besides adding many items of his own. Mark was dead,
there could be no doubt of it; but with the tenacity of a strong,
hopeful nature, the mother clung to the illusion that possibly the ball
stunned, instead of killing—that he would yet come back; and many a time
as the days went by, that mother started at the step upon the walk, or
ring of the bell, which she fancied might be his, hearing him sometimes
calling in the night storm for her to let him in, and hurrying down to
the door only to be disappointed and go back to her lonely room to weep
the dark night through.

With Helen there were no such illusions. After talking calmly and
rationally with both Robert and Tom, she knew her husband was dead, and
never watched and waited for him as his mother did. She had heard from
Mark’s companions in suffering all they had to tell, of his captivity
and his love for her which manifested itself in so many different ways.
Passionately she had wept over the tress of faded hair which Tom Tubbs
brought to her, saying, “he cut it from his head just before we left the
prison, and told me if he never got home and I did, to give the lock to
you, and say that all was well between him and God—that your prayers had
saved him. He wanted you to know that, because, he said, it would
comfort you most of all.”

And it did comfort her when she looked up at the clear wintry heavens
and thought that her lost one was there. It was her first real trial,
and it crushed her with its magnitude, so that she could not submit at
once, and many a cry of desolate agony broke the silence of her room,
where the whole night through she sat musing of the past, and raining
kisses upon the little lock of hair which from the Southern prison had
come to her, sole relic of the husband so dearly loved and truly
mourned. How faded it was from the rich brown she remembered so well,
and Helen gazing at it could realize in part the suffering and want
which had worn so many precious lives away. It was strange she never
dreamed of him. She often prayed that she might, so as to drive from her
mind, if possible, the picture of the prostrate form upon the low, damp
field, and the blood-stained face turned in its mortal agony towards the
southern sky and the pitiless foe above it. So she always saw him,
shuddering as she wondered if the foe had buried him decently or left
his bones to bleach upon the open plain.

Poor Helen, she was widowed indeed, and it needed not the badge of
mourning to tell how terribly she was bereaved. But the badge was there,
too, for in spite of the hope which said, “he is not dead,” Mrs. Banker
yielded to Helen’s importunities, and clothed herself and
daughter-in-law in the habiliments of woe, still waiting, still
watching, still listening for the step she should recognize so quickly,
still looking down the street; but looking, alas! in vain. The winter
passed away. Captive after captive came home, heart after heart was
cheered by the returning loved one, but for the inmates of No. — the
heavy cloud grew blacker, for the empty chair by the hearth remained
unoccupied, and the aching hearts uncheered. _Mark Ray did not come
back._




                               CHAPTER L.
                        THE DAY OF THE WEDDING.


Those first warm days of March, 1865, when spring and summer seemed to
kiss each other and join hands for a brief space of time, how balmy, how
still, how pleasant they were, and how bright the farm-house looked,
where preparations for Katy’s second bridal were going rapidly forward.
Aunt Betsy was in her element, for now had come the reality of the
vision she had seen so long, of house turned upside down in one grand
onslaught of suds and sand, then, righted again by magic power, and
smelling very sweet and clean from its recent ablutions—of turkeys dying
in the barn, of chickens in the shed, of loaves of frosted cake, with
cards and cards of snowy biscuit piled upon the pantry shelf—of jellies,
tarts, and chicken salad—of home-made wine, and home-brewed beer, with
tea and coffee portioned out and ready for the evening.

In the dining-room the table was set with the new China ware and silver,
a joint Christmas gift from Helen and Katy to their good Aunt Hannah, as
real mistress of the house.

“Not plated ware, but the gen-oo-ine article,” Aunt Betsy had explained
at least twenty times to those who came to see the silver, and she
handled it proudly now as she took it from the flannel bags in which
Mrs. Deacon Bannister said it must be kept, and placed it on a
side-table.

The coffee-urn was Katy’s, so was the tea-kettle and the massive
pitcher, but the rest was “ours,” Aunt Betsy complacently reflected as
she contemplated the glittering array, and then hurried off to see what
was burning on the stove, stumbling over Morris as she went, and telling
him “he had come too soon—it was not fittin’ for him to be there under
foot until he was wanted.”

Without replying directly to Aunt Betsy, Morris knocked with a vast
amount of assurance at a side door, which opened directly, and Katy’s
glowing face looked out, and Katy’s voice was heard, saying joyfully,

“Oh, Morris, it’s you. I’m so glad you’ve come, for I wanted”——

But what she wanted was lost to Aunt Betsy by the closing of the door,
and Morris and Katy were alone in the little sewing room where latterly
they had passed so many quiet hours together, and where lay the bridal
dress with its chaste and simple decorations. Katy had clung tenaciously
to her mourning robe, asking if she _might_ wear black, as ladies
sometimes did. But Morris had promptly answered no. His bride, if she
came to him willingly, must not come clad in widow’s weeds, for when she
became his wife she would cease to be a widow.

And so black was laid aside, and Katy, in soft tinted colors, with her
bright hair curling on her neck, looked as girlish and beautiful as if
in Greenwood there were no pretentious monument, with Wilford’s name
upon it, nor any little grave in Silverton where Baby Cameron slept. She
had been both wife and mother, but she was quite as dear to Morris as if
she had never borne other name than Katy Lennox, and as he held her for
a moment to his heart he thanked God who had at last given to him the
idol of his boyhood and the love of his later years. Across their
pathway no shadow was lying, except when they remembered Helen, on whom
the mantle of widowhood had fallen just as Katy was throwing it off.

Poor Helen! the tears always crept to Katy’s eyes when she thought of
her, and now, as she saw her steal across the road and strike into the
winding path which led to the pasture where the pines and hemlock grew,
she nestled closer to Morris, and whispered,

“Sometimes I think it wrong to be so happy when Helen is so sad. I pity
her so much to-day.”

And Helen was to be pitied, for her heart was aching to its very core.
She had tried to keep up through the preparations for Katy’s bridal,
tried to seem interested and even cheerful, while all the time a hidden
agony was tugging at her heart, and life seemed a heavier burden than
she could bear.

All her portion of the work was finished now, and in the balmy
brightness of that warm April afternoon she went into the fields where
she could be alone beneath the soft summer-like sky, and pour out her
pent-up anguish into the ear of Him who had so often soothed and
comforted her when other aids had failed. Last night, for the first time
since she heard the dreadful news, she had dreamed of Mark, and when she
awoke she still felt the pressure of his lips upon her brow, the touch
of his arm upon her waist, and the thrilling clasp of his warm hand as
it pressed and held her own. But that was a dream, a cruel delusion, and
its memory made the more dark and dreary as she went slowly up the
beaten path, pausing once beneath a chestnut tree and leaning her
throbbing head against the shaggy bark as she heard in the distance the
shrill whistle of the downward train from Albany, and thought as she
always did when she heard that whistle, “Oh, if that heralded Mark’s
return, how happy I should be.” But many sounds like that had echoed
across the Silverton hills, bringing no hope to her, and now as it again
died away in the Cedar Swamp she pursued her way up the path till she
reached a long white ledge of rocks—“The lovers’ Rock,” some called it,
for village boys and maidens knew the place, repairing to it often, and
whispering their vows beneath the overhanging pines, which whispered
back again, and told the winds the story which though so old is always
new to her who listens and to him who tells.

Just underneath the pine there was a large flat stone, and there Helen
sat down, gazing sadly upon the valley below, and the clear waters of
Fairy Pond gleaming in the April sunshine which lay so warmly on the
grassy hills and flashed so brightly from the cupola at Linwood, where
the national flag was flying. For a time Helen watched the banner as it
shook its folds to the breeze, then as she remembered with what a
fearful price that flag had been saved from dishonor, she hid her face
in her hands and sobbed bitterly.

“God help me not to think I paid too dearly for my country’s rights. Oh,
Mark, my husband, I may be wrong, but _you_ were dearer to me than many,
many countries, and it is hard to give you up—hard to know that the
notes of peace which float up from the South will not waken you in that
grave which I can never see. Oh, Mark, my darling, my darling, I love
you so much, I miss you so much, I want you so much. God help me to
bear. God help to say, ‘Thy will be done.’”

She was rocking to and fro in her grief, with her hands pressed over her
face, and for a long time she sat thus, while the sun crept on further
towards the west, and the freshened breeze shook the tasseled pine above
her head and kissed the bands of rich brown hair, from which her hat had
fallen. She did not heed the lapse of time, nor hear the footstep coming
up the pathway to the ledge where she was sitting, the footstep which
paused at intervals, as if the comer were weary, or in quest of some
one, but which at last came on with rapid bounds as an opening among the
trees showed where Helen sat. It was a tall young man who came, a young
man, sun-burned and scarred, with uniform soiled and worn, but with the
fire in his brown eyes unquenched, the love in his true heart unchanged,
save as it was deeper, more intense for the years of separation, and the
long, cruel suspense, which was all over now. The grave had given up its
dead, the captive was released, and through incredible suffering and
danger had reached his Northern home, had sought and found his girl-wife
of a few hours, for it was Mark Ray speeding up the path, and holding
back his breath as he came close to the bowed form upon the rock,
feeling a strange throb of awe when he saw the _mourning dress_, and
knew it was worn for him. A moment more, and she lay in his arms; white
and insensible, for with the sudden winding of his arms around her neck,
the pressure of his lips upon her cheek, the calling of her name, and
the knowing it was really her husband, she had uttered a wild,
impassioned cry, half of terror, half of joy, and fainted entirely away,
just as she did when told that he was dead! There was no water near, but
with loving words and soft caresses Mark brought her back to life,
raining both tears and kisses upon the dear face which had grown so
white and thin since the Christmas eve when the wintry star light had
looked down upon their parting. For several moments neither could speak
for the great choking joy which wholly precluded the utterance of a
word. Helen was the first to rally. With her head lying in Mark’s lap
and pillowed on Mark’s arm, she whispered,

“Let us thank God together. You, too, have learned to pray.”

Reverently Mark bent his head to hers, and the pine boughs overhead
heard, instead of mourning notes, a prayer of praise, as the reunited
wife and husband fervently thanked God, who had brought them together
again.

Not until nearly a half hour was gone, and Helen had begun to realize
that the arm which held her so tightly was genuine flesh and blood, and
not mere delusion, did she look up into the face, glowing with so much
of happiness and love. Upon the forehead, and just beneath the hair,
there was a savage scar, and the flesh about it was red and angry still,
showing how sore and painful it must have been, and making Helen shudder
as she touched it with her lips, and said,

“Poor, darling Mark! that’s where the cruel ball entered; but where is
the other scar,—the one made by the man who went to you in the fields. I
have tried so hard not to hate him for firing at a fallen foe.”

“Rather pray for him, darling. Bless him as the savior of your husband’s
life, the noble fellow but for whom I should not have been here now, for
he was a Unionist, as true to the old flag as Abraham himself,” Mark Ray
replied; and then, as Helen looked wonderingly at him, he laid her head
in an easier position upon his shoulder, and told her a story so strange
in its details, that but for the frequent occurrence of similar
incidents, it would be pronounced wholly unreal and false.

Of what he suffered in the Southern prisons he did not speak, either
then or ever after, but began with the day when, with a courage born of
desperation, he jumped from the moving train and was shot down by the
guard. Partially stunned, he still retained sense enough to know when a
tall form bent over him, and to hear the rough but kindly voice which
said,

“Play ’possum, Yank. Make b’lieve you’re dead, and throw ’em off the
scent.”

This was the last he knew for many weeks, and when again he woke to
consciousness he found himself on the upper floor of a dilapidated hut,
which stood in the centre of a little wood, his bed a pile of straw,
over which was spread a clean patch-work quilt, while seated at his
side, and watching him intently, was the same man who had bent over him
in the field, and shouted to the rebels that he was dead.

“I shall never forget my sensations then,” Mark said, “for with the
exception of this present hour, when I hold you in my arms, and know the
danger is over, I never experienced a moment of greater happiness and
rest than when, up in that squalid garret, I came back to life again,
the pain in my head all gone, and nothing left save a delicious feeling
of languor, which prompted me to lie quietly for several minutes,
examining my surroundings, and speculating upon the chance which brought
me there. That I was a prisoner I did not doubt, until the old man at my
side said to me cheerily,

“Well, old chap, you’ve come through it like a major, though I was
mighty dubus a spell about that pesky ball. But old Aunt Bab and me
fished it out, and since then you’ve begun to mend.”

“‘Where am I? Who are you?’ I asked, and he replied, ‘Who be I? Why, I’m
_Jack Jennins_, the rarinest, redhotedest secesh there is in these yer
parts, so the Rebs thinks; but ’twixt you and me, boy, I’m the tallest
kind of a Union,—got a piece of the old flag sowed inside of my boots,
and every night before sleepin’ I prays the Lord to gin Abe the victory,
and raise Cain generally in t’other camp, and forgive Jack Jennins for
tellin’ so many lies, and makin’ b’lieve he’s one thing when you know
and he knows he’s t’other. If I’ve _spared_ one Union chap, I’ll bet I
have a hundred, me and old Bab, a black woman who lives here and tends
to the cases I fotch her, till we contrive to git ’em inter Tennessee,
whar they hev to shift for themselves.’

“I could only press his hand in token of my gratitude while he went on
to say, ‘Them was beans I fired at you that day, but they sarved every
purpose, and them scalliwags on the train s’pose you were put
underground weeks ago, if indeed you wasn’t left to rot in the sun, as
heaps and heaps on ’em is. Nobody knows you are here but Bab and me, and
nobody must know if you want to git off with a whole hide. I could git a
hundred dollars by givin’ you up, but you don’t s’pose Jack Jennins is a
gwine to do that ar infernal trick. No, sir,’ and he brought his brawny
fist down upon his knee with a force which made me tremble, while I
tried to express my thanks for his great kindness. He was a noble man,
Helen, while Aunt Bab, the colored woman, who nursed me so tenderly, and
whose black, bony hands I kissed at parting, was as true a woman as any
with a fairer skin and more beautiful exterior.

“For three weeks longer I stayed up in that loft, and in that time three
more escaped prisoners were brought there, and one Union refugee from
North Carolina. We left in company one wild, rainy night, when the storm
and darkness must have been sent for our special protection, and Jack
Jennings cried like a little child when he bade me good-bye, promising,
if he survived the war, to find his way to the North and visit me in New
York.

“We found these Unionists everywhere, and especially among the mountains
of Tennessee, where, but for their timely aid, we had surely been
recaptured. With blistered feet and bruised limbs we reached the lines
at last, when fever attacked me for the second time and brought me near
to death. Somebody wrote to you, but you never received it, and when I
grew better I would not let them write again, as I wanted to surprise
you. As soon as I was able I started North, my thoughts full of the
joyful meeting in store—a meeting which I dreaded too, for I knew you
must think me dead, and I felt so sorry for you, my darling, knowing, as
I did, you would mourn for your soldier husband. That my darling _has_
mourned is written on her face, and needs no words to tell it; but that
is over now,” Mark said, folding his wife closer to him, and kissing the
pale lips, while he told her how, arrived at Albany, he had telegraphed
to his mother, asking where Helen was.

“In Silverton,” was the reply, and so he came on in the morning train,
meeting his mother in Springfield as he had half expected to do, knowing
that she could leave New York in time to join him there.

“No words of mine,” he said, “are adequate to describe the thrill of joy
with which I looked again upon the hills and rocks so identified with
you that I loved them for your sake, hailing them as old, familiar
friends, and actually growing sick and faint with excitement when
through the leafless woods I caught the gleam of Fairy Pond, where I
gathered the lilies for you. There is a wedding in progress at the
farm-house, I learned from mother, and it seems very meet that I should
come at this time, making, in reality, a double wedding when I can truly
claim my bride,” and Mark kissed Helen passionately, laughing to see how
the blushes broke over her white face, and burned upon her neck.

Those were happy moments which they passed together upon that ledge of
rocks, happy enough to atone for all the dreadful past, and when at last
they rose and slowly retraced their steps to the farm-house, it seemed
to Mark that Helen’s cheeks were rounder than when he found her, while
Helen knew that the arm on which she leaned was stronger than when it
first encircled her an hour or two before.




                              CHAPTER LI.
                              THE WEDDING.


On the same train with Mrs. Banker and Mark, Bell Cameron came with Bob,
but father Cameron was not able to come; he would gladly have done so if
he could, and he sent his blessing to Katy with the wish that she might
be very happy in her second married life. This message Bell gave to
Katy, and then tried to form some reasonable excuse for her mother’s and
Juno’s absence, for she could not tell how haughtily both had declined
the invitation, Juno finding fault because Katy had not waited longer
than two years, and Mrs. Cameron blaming her for being so very vulgar as
to be married at home, instead of in church. On this point Katy herself
had been a little disquieted, feeling how much more appropriate it was
that she be married in the church, but shrinking from standing again a
bride at the same altar where she had once before been made a wife. She
could not do it, she finally decided; there would be too many harrowing
memories crowding upon her mind, and as Morris did not particularly care
where the ceremony was performed, it was settled that it should be at
the house, even though Mrs. Deacon Bannister did say that “she had
supposed Dr. Grant too _High Church_ to do anything so _Presbyterianny_
as that.”

Bell’s arrival at the farm-house was timely; for the unexpected
appearance in their midst of one whom they looked upon as surely dead
had stunned and bewildered the family to such an extent that it needed
the presence of just such a matter-of-fact, self-possessed woman as
Bell, to bring things back to their original shape. It was wonderful how
the city girl fitted into the vacant niches, seeing to everything which
needed seeing to, and still finding time to steal away alone with
Lieutenant Bob, who kept her in a painful state of blushing, by
constantly wishing it was his bridal night as well as Dr. Grant’s, and
by inveighing against the weeks which must intervene, ere the day
appointed for the grand ceremony, to take place in Grace Church, and
which was to make Bell his wife.

                  *       *       *       *       *

“Come in here, Helen, I have something to show you,” Mrs. Banker said,
after she had again embraced and wept over her long lost son, whose
return was not quite real yet; and leading her daughter-in-law to her
bedroom, she showed her the elegant, white silk which had been made for
her just after her marriage, two years before, and which, with careful
forethought, she had brought with her, as more suitable now for the
wedding, than Helen’s mourning weeds.

“I made the most of my time last night, after receiving Mark’s telegram,
and had it modernized somewhat,” she said. “And I brought your pearls,
for you will be most as much a bride as Katy, and I have a pride in
seeing my son’s wife appropriately dressed.”

Far different were Helen’s feelings now, as she donned the elegant
dress, from what they had been the first and only time she wore it. Then
the bridegroom was where danger and death lay thickly around his
pathway; but now he was at her side, kissing her cheek, where the roses
were burning so brightly, and calling still deeper blushes to her face,
by his teasing observations and humorous ridicule of his own personal
appearance. Would she not feel ashamed of him in his soiled uniform? And
would she not cast longing glances at her handsome brother-in-law and
the stylish Lieutenant Bob? But Helen was proud of her husband’s
uniform, as a badge of what he had suffered; and when the folds of her
rich dress swept against it, she did not draw them away, but nestled
closer to him, leaning upon his shoulder; and when no one was near,
winding her soft arm about his neck once, whispering, “My darling Mark,
I cannot make it real yet.”

Softly the night shadows fell around the farm-house, and in the rooms
below a rather mixed group was assembled—all the _élite_ of the town,
with many of Aunt Betsy’s neighbors, and the doctor’s patients, who had
come to see their physician married, rejoicing in his happiness, and
glad that the mistress of Linwood was not to be a stranger, but the
young girl who had grown up in their midst, and who, by suffering and
sorrow, had been moulded into a noble woman, worthy of Dr. Grant. She
was ready now for her second bridal, in her dress of white, with no
vestige of color in her face, and her great blue eyes shining with a
brilliancy which made them almost black. Occasionally, as her thoughts
leaped backward over a period of almost six years, a tear trembled on
her long eyelashes, but Morris kissed it away, asking if she were sorry.

“Oh, no, not sorry that I am to be your wife,” she answered; “but it is
not possible that I should forget entirely the roughness of the road
which has led me to you.”

“They are waiting for you,” was said several times, and down the stairs
passed Mark Ray and Helen, Lieut. Bob and Bell, with Dr. Grant and Katy,
whose face, as she stood again before the clergyman and spoke her
marriage vows, shone with a strange, peaceful light, which made it seem
to those who gazed upon her like the face of some pure angel.

There was no thought then of that deathbed in Georgetown—no thought of
Greenwood or the little grave in Silverton, where the crocuses and
hyacinths were blossoming—no thought of anything save the man at her
side, whose voice was so full and earnest as it made the responses, and
who gently pressed the little hand as he fitted the wedding ring. It was
over at last, and Katy was Morris’s wife, blushing now as they called
her _Mrs. Grant_, and putting up her rosebud lips to be kissed by all
who claimed that privilege. Helen, too, came in for her share of
attention, and the opinion of the guests as to the beauty of the
respective brides, as they were termed, was pretty equally divided.

In heavy rustling silk, which actually trailed an inch, and cap of real
lace, Aunt Betsy moved among the crowd, her face glowing with the
satisfaction she felt at seeing her nieces so much admired, and her
heart so full of good will and toleration that after the supper was
over, and she fancied a few of the younger ones were beginning to feel
tired, she suggested to Bell that she might start a _dance_ if she had a
mind to, either in the kitchen or the parlor, it did not matter where,
and “Ephraim would not care an atom,” a remark which brought from Mrs.
Deacon Bannister a most withering look of reproach, and slightly
endangered Aunt Betsy’s standing in the church. Perhaps Bell Cameron
suspected as much, for she replied that they were having a splendid time
as it was, and as Dr. Grant did not dance, they might as well dispense
with it altogether. And so it happened that there was no dancing at
Katy’s wedding, and Uncle Ephraim escaped the reproof which his brother
deacon would have felt called upon to give him had he permitted so
grievous a sin, while Mrs. Deacon Bannister, who, at the first trip of
the toe would have departed lest her eyes should look upon the evil
thing, was permitted to remain until “it was out,” and the guests
retired _en masse_ to their respective homes.

                  *       *       *       *       *

The carriage from Linwood stood at the farm-house door, and Katy,
wrapped in shawls and hood, was ready to go with her husband. There were
no tears shed at this parting, for their darling was not going far away;
her new home was just across the fields, and through the soft moonlight
they could see its chimney tops, and trace for some little distance the
road over which the carriage went bearing her swiftly on; her hands fast
locked in Morris’s, her head upon his arm, and the hearts of both too
full of bliss for either to speak a word until Linwood was reached,
when, folding Katy to his bosom in a passionate embrace, Morris said to
her,

“We are home at last—your home and mine, my precious, precious wife.”

The village clock was striking one, and the sound echoed across the
waters of Fairy Pond, awakening, in his marshy bed, a sleeping frog, who
sent forth upon the warm, still air a musical, plaintive note as Morris
bore his bride over the threshold and into the library, where a cheerful
fire was blazing. He had ordered it kindled there, for he had a fancy
ere he slept to see fulfilled a dream he had dreamed so often, of Katy
sitting as his wife in the chair across the hearth, where he placed her
now, himself removing her shawl and hood; then kneeling down before her,
with his arm around her waist and his head upon her shoulder, he prayed
aloud to the God who had brought her there, asking His blessing upon
their future life, and dedicating himself and all he had to his Master’s
service. It is such prayer which God delights to answer, and a peace,
deeper than they had yet known, fell upon that newly married pair at
Linwood.




                              CHAPTER LII.
                              CONCLUSION.


The scene shifts now to New York, where, one week after that wedding in
Silverton, Mark and Helen went, together with Morris and Katy. But not
to Madison Square. That house had been sold, and Katy saw it but once,
her tears falling fast as, driving slowly by with Morris, she gazed at
the closed doors and windows of what was once her home, and around which
lingered no pleasant memories save that it was the birthplace of baby
Cameron. Lieutenant Reynolds had thought to buy it, but Bell said, “No,
it would not be pleasant for Katy to visit me there, and I mean to have
her with me as much as possible.” So the house went to strangers, and a
less pretentious but quite as comfortable one was bought for Bell, so
far up town that Juno wondered how her sister would manage to exist so
far from everything, intimating that her visits would be far between, a
threat which Lieutenant Bob took quite heroically; indeed, it rather
enhanced the value of his pleasant home than otherwise, for Juno was not
a favorite, and his equanimity was not likely to be disturbed if she
never crossed his threshold. She was throwing bait to _Arthur Grey_, the
man who swore he was fifty to escape the draft, and who, now that the
danger was over, would gladly take back his oath and be forty, as he
really was. With the most freezing kiss imaginable Juno greeted Katy,
calling her “Mrs. Grant,” and treating Morris as if he were an entire
stranger, instead of the man whom to get she would once have moved both
earth and heaven. Mrs. Cameron, too, though glad that Katy was married,
and fully approving her choice, threw into her manner so much reserve
that Katy’s intercourse with her was anything but agreeable, and she
turned with alacrity to father Cameron, who received her with open arms,
calling her his daughter, and welcoming Morris as his _son_, taken in
Wilford’s stead. “My boy,” he frequently called him, showing how
willingly he accepted him as the husband of one whom he loved as his
child. Greatly he wished that they should stay with him while they
remained in New York, but Katy preferred going to Mrs. Banker’s, where
she would be more quiet, and avoid the bustle and confusion attending
the preparations for Bell’s wedding. It was to be a grand church affair,
and to take place during Easter week, after which the bridal pair were
going on to Washington, and if possible to Richmond, where Bob had been
a prisoner. Everything seemed conspiring to make the occasion a joyful
one, for all through the North, from Maine to California, the air was
rife with the songs of victory and the notes of approaching peace. But
alas! He who holds our country’s destiny in his hand changed that song
of gladness into a wail of woe, which, echoing through the land, rose up
to heaven in one mighty sob of anguish, as the whole nation bemoaned its
loss. Our President was dead, and New York was in mourning, so black, so
profound, that with a shudder Bell Cameron tossed aside the orange
wreath and said to her lover, “We will be married at home. I cannot now
go to the church, when everything seems like one great funeral.”

And so in Mrs. Cameron’s drawing-room there was a quiet wedding, one
pleasant April morning, and Bell’s plain traveling dress was far more in
keeping with the gloom which hung over the great city than her gala
robes would have been, with a long array of carriages and merry wedding
chimes. Westward they went instead of South, and when our late lamented
President was borne back to the prairies of Illinois, they were there to
greet the noble dead, and mingle their tears with those who knew and
loved him long before the world appreciated his worth.

                  *       *       *       *       *

Softly the May rain falls on Linwood, where the fresh green grass is
springing and the early spring flowers blooming, and where Katy stands
for a moment in the bay window of the library, listening to the patter
on the tin roof overhead, and gazing wistfully down the road, as if
watching for some one; then turning, she enters the dining-room and
inspects the supper table, for her mother. Aunt Hannah, and Aunt Betsy
are visiting her this rainy afternoon, while Morris, on his return from
North Silverton, is to call for Uncle Ephraim and bring him home to tea.

Linwood is a nice place to visit, and the old ladies enjoy it vastly,
especially Aunt Betsy, who never tires of telling what they have “over
to Katy’s,” and whose capeless shaker hangs often on the hall stand,
just as it hangs now, while she, good soul, sits in the pleasant parlor,
and darns the socks for Morris, taking as much pains as if it were a
network of fine lace she was weaving, instead of a shocking rent in some
luckless heel or toe. Up stairs there is a pleasant room which Katy
calls Aunt Betsy’s, and in it is the “feather bed,” which never found
its way to Madison Square. Morris himself did not think much of
feathers, but he made no objections when Aunt Betsy insisted upon Katy’s
having the bed kept for so many years, and only smiled a droll kind of
smile when he one morning met it coming up the walk in the wheelbarrow
which Uncle Ephraim trundled.

Morris and his young wife are very happy together and Katy finds the
hours of his absence very long, especially when left alone. Even to-day
the time drags heavily, and she looks more than once from the bay
window, until at last Brownie’s head is seen over the hill, and a few
moments after Morris’s arm is around her shoulders, and her lips are
upturned for the kiss he gives as he leads her into the house, chiding
her for exposing herself to the rain, and placing in her hand three
letters, which she does not open until the cozy tea is over and her
family friends have gone. Then, while her husband looks over his evening
paper, she breaks the seals one by one reading first the letter from
“Mrs. Bob Reynolds,” who has returned from the West, and who is in the
full glory of her bridal calls.

“I was never so happy in my life as I am now,” she wrote. “Indeed, I did
not know that a married woman could be so happy; but then every woman
has not a _Bob_ for her husband, which makes a vast difference. You
ought to see Juno. I know she envies me, though she affects the utmost
contempt for matrimony, and reminds me forcibly of the fox and the
grapes. You see, Arthur Grey is a failure, so far as Juno is concerned,
he having withdrawn from the field and laid himself at the feet of Sybil
Grandon, who will be Mrs. Grey, and a bride at Saratoga the coming
summer. Juno intends going too, as the bridesmaid of the party; but
every year her chances lessen, and I have very little hope that father
will ever call other than Bob his son, always excepting _Morris_, of
course, whom he has adopted in place of Wilford. You don’t know, Katy,
how much father thinks of you, blessing the day which brought you to us,
and saying that if he is ever saved, he shall in a great measure owe it
to your influence and consistent life after the great trouble came upon
you.”

There were tears in Katy’s eyes as she read this letter from Bell, and
with a mental prayer of thanksgiving that she had been of any use in
guiding even one to the Shepherd’s Fold, she took next the letter whose
superscription brought back so vividly to her mind the daisy-covered
grave in Alnwick. Marian, who was now at Annapolis, caring for the
returned prisoners, did not write often, and her letters were prized the
more by Katy, who read with a beating heart the kind congratulations
upon her recent marriage, sent by Marian Hazelton.

  “I knew how it would end, when you were in Georgetown,” she wrote,
  “and I am glad that it is so, praying daily that you may be happy with
  Dr. Grant and remember the sad past only as some dream from which you
  have awakened. I thank you for your invitation to visit Linwood, and
  when my work is over I may come for a few weeks and rest in your
  bird’s nest of a home. Thank God the war is ended; but _my boys_ need
  me yet, and until the last crutch has left the hospital, I shall stay
  where duty lies. What my life will henceforth be I do not know; but I
  have sometimes thought that with the funds you so generously bestowed
  upon me, I shall open a school for orphan children, taking charge
  myself, and so doing some good. Will you be the Lady Patroness, and
  occasionally enliven us with the light of your countenance? I have
  left the hospital but once since you were here, and then I went to
  Wilford’s grave. I prayed for you while there, remembering only that
  _you_ had been his wife. In a little box where no eyes but mine ever
  look, there is a bunch of flowers plucked from Wilford’s grave. They
  are faded and withered, but something of their sweet perfume lingers
  still; and I prize them as my greatest treasure; for, except the lock
  of hair severed from his head, they are all that is remaining to me of
  the past, which now seems so far away. It is time to make my nightly
  round of visits, so I must bid you good-bye. The Lord lift up the
  light of his countenance upon you, and be with you forever.

                                                       MARIAN HAZELTON.”

For a long time Katy held this letter in her hand, wondering if the
sorrowful woman whose life was once so strangely blended with that of
Marian Hazelton, could be the Katy Grant who sat by the evening fire at
Linwood, with the sunshine of perfect happiness resting on her heart.
“Truly He doeth all things well to those who wait upon Him,” she
thought, as she laid down Marian’s letter and took up the third and
last, Helen’s letter, dated at Fortress Monroe, whither, with Mark Ray,
she had gone just after Bell Cameron’s bridal.

“You cannot imagine,” Helen wrote, “the feelings of awe and even terror
which steal over me the nearer I get to the seat of war, and the more I
realize the bloody strife we have been engaged in, and which, thank God,
has now nearly ceased. You have heard of John Jennings, the noble man
who saved my dear husband’s life, and of Aunt Bab, who helped in the
good work? Both are here, and I never saw Mark more pleased than when
seized around the neck by two long brawny arms, while a cheery voice
called out: ‘Hallow, old chap, has you done forgot John Jennins?’ I
verily believe Mark cried, and I know I did, especially when old Bab
came up and shook ‘young misses’ hand.’ I kissed her, Katy—all black,
and rough, and uncouth as she was. I wish you could see how grateful the
old creature is for every act of kindness. When we come home again, both
John and Bab will come with us, though what we shall do with John, is
more than I can tell. Mark says he shall employ him about the office,
and this I know will delight Tom Tubbs, who has again made friends with
Chitty, and who will almost worship John as having saved Mark’s life.
Aunt Bab shall have an honored seat by the kitchen fire, and a pleasant
room all to herself, working only when she likes, and doing as she
pleases.

“Did I tell you that Mattie Tubbs was to be my seamstress? I am getting
together a curious household, you will say; but I like to have those
about me to whom I can do the greatest amount of good, and as I happen
to know how much Mattie admires ‘the Lennox girls,’ I did not hesitate
to take her.

“We stopped at Annapolis on our way here, and I shall never forget the
pale, worn faces, nor the great sunken eyes which looked at me so
wistfully as I went from cot to cot, speaking words of cheer to the
sufferers, some of whom were Mark’s companions in prison, and whose eyes
lighted up with joy as they recognized him and heard of his escape.
There are several nurses here, but no words of mine can tell what _one_
of them is to the poor fellows, or how eagerly they watch for her
coming. Following her with greedy glances as she moves about the room,
and holding her hand with a firm clasp, as if they would keep her with
them always. Indeed, more than one heart, as I am told, has confessed
its allegiance to her; but she answers all the same, ‘I have no love to
give. It died out long ago, and cannot be recalled.’ You can guess who
she is, Katy. The soldiers call her an angel, but we know her as
Marian.”

There were great tear blots upon that letter as Katy put it aside, and
nestling close to Morris, laid her head upon his knee, where his hand
could smooth her golden curls, while she pondered Helen’s closing words,
thinking how much they expressed, and how just a tribute they were to
the noble woman whose life had been one constant sacrifice of self for
another’s good—“The soldiers call her an angel, but we know her as
Marian.”


                                THE END.

------------------------------------------------------------------------




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                          TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES


 1. Silently corrected obvious typographical errors and variations in
      spelling.
 2. Retained archaic, non-standard, and uncertain spellings as printed.
 3. Enclosed italics font in _underscores_.

*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 69954 ***