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.”