in astonishment, asking what would please her if the opera
did not. What would she like?

Turning her eyes full upon me, she exclaimed:

"I do like it some, I suppose, only I get so tired. I like to ride, I
like to skate, I like to shop, and all that; but, oh, you don't know how
I want to go home to mother and Helen. I have not seen them for so long,
but I am going in the spring--going in May. How many days are there in
March and April? Sixty-one," she continued; "then I may safely say that
in eighty days I shall see mother, and all the dear old places. It is
not a grand home like this. You, Bell, might laugh at it. Juno would, I
am sure, but you do not know how dear it is to me, or how I long for a
sight of the huckleberry hills and the rocks where Helen and I used to
play, Helen is a darling sister, and I know you will like her."

Just then Will called to say the carriage was waiting, and Katy was
driven away, while I sat thinking of her and the devoted love with which
she clings to her home and friends, wondering if it were the kindest
thing which could have been done, transplanting her to our atmosphere,
so different from her own.

March 1st.--As it was in the winter, so it is now; Mrs. Wilford Cameron
is the rage--the bright star of society--which quotes and pets and
flatters, and even laughs at her by turns; and Wilford, though still
watchful, lest she should do something _outre_, is very proud of her,
insisting upon her accepting invitations, sometimes two for one evening,
until the child is absolutely worn out, and said to me once, when I told
her how well she was looking and how pretty her dress was: "Yes, pretty
enough, but I am so tired. If I could lie down on mother's bed, in a
shilling calico, just as I used to do!"

Mother's bed seems at present to be the height of her ambition--the
thing she most desires; and as Juno fancied it must be the feathers she
is sighing for, she wickedly suggests that Wilford either buy a feather
bed for his wife, or else send to that Aunt Betsy for the one which was
to be Katy's setting out! They go to housekeeping in May, and on Madison
Square, too, I think Wilford would quite as soon remain with us, for he
does not fancy change; but Katy wants a home of her own, and I never saw
anything more absolutely beautiful than her face when father said to
Wilford that No. ---- Madison Square was for sale, advising him to
secure it. But when mother intimated that there was no necess