no saying she had neither manner nor style, while Bell
offered no opinion, except that she was pretty. A part of these
criticisms Wilford heard, and they made his blood tingle, for he had
great faith in their opinions, even though he sometimes savagely
combated them, and into his heart there crept a slight feeling of
dissatisfaction toward Katy, now kneeling on the floor by Jamie's side,
and with her head almost in his lap, talking to him of Morris Grant,
whose very name had a strange power to soothe her.

"You don't seem like an aunt," Jamie said at last, smoothing her short
hair; "you look so like a girl. I wonder, must I call you so? I guess
I must, though, for Uncle Will told me to, and we all mind him, grandma
and all! Do you?" and the child looked curiously at her.

Had Jamie's question been put to her two weeks ago, she would have
hesitated in her answer, and even now she had not waked to the fact that
in all essential points her husband's wish was the law she could not
help obey, but she replied, laughingly: "Yes, I mind him," while Jamie
continued: "I love him so much, and he loves us and you. I heard him
tell grandma so, and by his voice I knew he was in earnest. He never
loved any one half so well before, he said, not even--somebody--I forget
who--a funny name it was."

Katy felt almost as if she were doing wrong, but remembering what Juno
had said of Sybil Grey, she faintly asked:

"Was Sybil the name?"

Jamie hardly thought it was. It seemed more like some town; still, it
might have been, he said, and Katy's heart grew lighter, for Juno's idle
words had troubled her, and Sybil Grey most of all; but if her husband
now loved her best, she did not care so much; and when Wilford came for
her to join them in the parlor, he found her like herself both in looks
and spirits. Mark Ray had been obliged to decline Mr. Cameron's
invitation to dinner, but he was now in the library, Wilford said, and
Katy was glad, for she remembered how he had helped her during that week
of gayety in Boston, when society was so new to her. As he had been
then, so he was now, and his friendly, respectful manner put Katy as
much at her ease as it was possible for her to be in the presence of
Wilford's mother and sisters, who watched her so narrowly.

"I suppose you have not seen your Sister Helen? You know I called there,
of course?" Mark said to Katy; but before she could reply, a pair of
black eyes shot a keen glance at the luckle