now, doing nothing amiss, but making all her acts conform to a
prescribed rule of etiquette, and frowning majestically upon the
frolicsome, impulsive Katy, who had crept so far into the heart of
the eccentric man that he always found the hours of her absence long,
listening intently for the sound of her bounding footsteps, and feeling
that her coming to his household had infused into his veins a better,
healthier life than he had known for years. Katy was very dear to him,
and he felt a thrill of pain, while a shadow lowered on his brow when
first the toning down process commenced. He had heard them talk about
it, and in his wrath he had hurled a cut-glass goblet upon the marble
hearth, breaking it in atoms, while he called them a pair of precious
fools, and Wilford a bigger one because he suffered it. So long as his
convalescence lasted, he was some restraint upon his wife, but when he
was well enough to resume his duties in his Wall Street office, there
was nothing in the way, and Katy's education progressed accordingly. For
Wilford's sake, Katy would do anything, and as from some things he had
dropped she guessed that her manner was not quite what suited him, she
submitted to much which would otherwise have been excessively annoying.
But she was growing tired now, and it told upon her face, which was
whiter than when she came to New York, while her figure was, if
possible, slighter and more airy; but this only enhanced her loveliness,
Wilford thought, and so he paid no heed to her complaints of weariness,
but kept her in the circle which welcomed her so warmly, and would have
missed her so much.

Little by little it had come to Katy that she was not quite as
comfortable in her husband's family as she would be in a house of her
own. The constant watch kept over her by Mrs. Cameron and Juno irritated
and fretted her, making her wonder what was the matter, and why she
should so often feel lonely and desolate when surrounded by every luxury
which wealth could purchase. "It is his folks," she always said to
herself when cogitating upon the subject. "Alone with Wilford I shall
feel as light and happy as I used to do in Silverton."

And so Katy caught eagerly at the prospect of a release from the
restraint of No. ----, seeming so anxious that Wilford, almost before he
was aware of it himself, became the owner of one of the most desirable
situations on Madison Square; and Katy was the envy of the belles, who
had copied and