ut Wilford's lips as he said this, and taking up
the picture he gazed for a long time upon the handsome, girlish face,
whose dark eyes seemed to look reproachfully upon him, just as they must
have looked when the words were penned: "God will never forgive the
wrong you have done to me."

"Genevra was mistaken," he said. "At least, if God has not forgiven, he
has prospered me, which amounts to the same thing;" and without a single
throb of gratitude to Him who had thus prospered him, Wilford laid
Genevra's picture and Genevra's note back with the withered grass and
flowers plucked from Genevra's grave, and then went again upstairs, just
as Katy's ring was heard and Katy herself came in.

As thoughts of Genevra always made Wilford kinder toward his wife, so
now he kissed her white cheek, noticing that, as Mark had said, it was
whiter than last year in June. But mountain air would bring back the
roses, he thought, as he handed her the note.

"Oh, yes, from Marian Hazelton," Katy said, glancing first at the name
and then hastily reading it through.

"Who is Marian Hazelton? Some intimate friend, I judge, from the liberty
she took."

"Not very intimate, though I liked her so much, and thought her above
her position," Katy replied, repeating all she knew of Marian, and how
she chanced to know her at all. "Don't you remember Helen wrote that she
fainted at our wedding, and I was so sorry, fearing I might have
overworked her."

Wilford did remember something about it, and satisfied that Marian
Hazelton had no idea of intruding herself upon them, except as she might
ask for work, he dismissed her from his mind and told Katy of his plan
for taking her to the Mountain House a few weeks before going to
Saratoga.

"Would you not like it?" he asked, as she continued silent, with her
eyes fixed upon the window opposite.

"Yes," and Katy drew a long and weary breath. "I shall like any place
where there are birds, and rocks, and trees, and real grass, such as
grows of itself in the country; but Wilford," and Katy crept close to
him now, "if I might go to Silverton, I should get strong so fast. You
don't know how I long to see home once more. I dream about it nights and
think about it days, knowing just how pleasant it is there, with the
roses in bloom and the meadows so fresh and green. May I go, Wilford?
May I go home to mother?"

Had Katy asked for half his fortune, just as she asked to go home,
Wilford would have given it