“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.