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.