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.