n the fashion
of her hair, was copied and admired, was gratifying to her, because she
knew how much it pleased her husband, who was never happier or prouder
than when, with Katy on his arm, he entered some crowded parlor and
heard the buzz of admiration as it circled around, while Katy,
simple-hearted and guileless still, smiled and blushed like a little
child, wondering at the attentions lavished upon her, and attributing
them mostly to her husband, whose position she thoroughly understood,
marveling more and more that he should have chosen her to be his wife.
That he had so honored her made her love him with a strange kind of
grateful, clinging love, which as yet would acknowledge no fault in him,
no wrong, no error; and if ever a shadow did cloud her heart, she was
the one to blame, not Wilford; he was right--he the idol she
worshiped--he the one for whose sake she tried so hard to drop her
country ways and conform to the rules his mother and sister taught,
submitting with the utmost good-nature to what Bell in her journal had
called the drill, but it must be confessed not succeeding very well in
imitating Juno. Katy could hardly be other than her own easy, graceful
self, and though the drills had their effect, and taught her many
things, they could not divest her of that natural, playful, airy manner
which so charmed the city people and made her the reigning belle. As
Marian Hazleton had predicted, others than her husband had spoken words
of praise in Katy's ear; but such was her nature that the shafts of
flattery glanced aside, leaving her unharmed, so that her husband,
though sometimes startled and disquieted, had no cause for jealousy,
enjoying Katy's success far more than she did herself, urging her out
when she would rather have stayed at home, and evincing so much
annoyance if she ventured to remonstrate that she gave it up at last
and floated on with the tide.

Mrs. Cameron had at first been greatly shocked at Katy's want of
propriety, looking on aghast when she wound her arms around Wilford's
neck, or sat upon his knee; but to the elder Cameron the sight was a
pleasant one, bringing back sunny memories of a summer time years ago,
when he was young, and a fair bride had for a few brief weeks made this
earth a paradise to him. But fashion had entered his Eden--that summer
time was gone, and only the dim leaves of autumn lay where the buds
which promised so much had been. The girlish bride was a stately matron