she drove along the streets, where they were beginning to light the
street lamps, for the December day was dark and cloudy. It seemed so
like a dream that she, who once had picked huckleberries on the
Silverton hills, and bound coarse, heavy shoes to buy herself a pink
gingham dress, should now be riding in her carriage toward the home
which she knew was magnificent; and Katy's tears fell like rain as,
nestling close to Wilford, who asked what was the matter, she whispered:
"I can hardly believe that it is I--it is so unreal."

"Please don't cry," Wilford rejoined, brushing her tears away. "You know
I don't like your eyes to be red."

With a great effort, Katy kept her tears back, and was very calm when
they reached the brownstone front, far enough uptown to save it from
the slightest approach to plebeianism from contact with its downtown
neighbors. In the hall the chandelier was burning, and as the carriage
stopped a flame of light seemed suddenly to burst from every window as
the gas heads were turned up, so that Katy caught glimpses of rich
silken curtains and costly lace as she went up the steps, clinging to
Wilford and looking ruefully around for Esther, who had disappeared
through the basement door. Another moment and they stood within the
marbled hall, Katy conscious of nothing definite--nothing but a vague
consciousness of refined elegance, and that a handsome, richly-dressed
lady came out to meet them, kissing Wilford quietly, and calling him her
son--that the same lady later turned to her, saying, kindly: "And this
is my new daughter?"

Then Katy came to life, and did that at the very thought of which she
shuddered when a few months' experience had taught her the temerity of
the act--she wound her arms impulsively around Mrs. Cameron's neck,
rumpling her point lace collar, and sadly displacing the coiffeur of the
astonished lady, who had seldom received so genuine a greeting as that
which Katy gave her, kissing her lips and whispering softly: "I love you
now, because you are Wilford's mother, but by and by because you are
mine. And you will love me some because I am his wife."

Wilford was horrified, particularly when he saw how startled his mother
looked as she tried to release herself and adjust her tumbled headgear.
It was not what he had hoped, nor what his mother had expected, for she
was unaccustomed to such demonstrations; but under the circumstances
Katy could not have done better. There was a tende