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?”