and he did not care to see her relinquish it.

But Katy remained true to herself. Dropping her girlish playfulness she
assumed a quiet, gentle dignity, which became her even better than her
gayer mood had done, making her ten times more popular and more sought
after, until she begged to go away, persuading Wilford at last to name
the day for their departure, and then, never doubting for a moment that
her destination was Silverton, she wrote to Helen that she was coming on
such a day, and as they would come by way of Providence and Worcester,
they would probably reach West Silverton at ten o'clock, A.M.

"Wilford," she added, in a postscript, "has gone down to bathe, and as
the mail is just closing, I shall send this letter without his seeing
it. Of course it can make no difference, for I have talked all summer of
coming, and he understands it."

CHAPTER XX.

MARK RAY AT SILVERTON.

The last day of summer was dying out in a fierce storm of rain which
swept in sheets across the Silverton hills, hiding the pond from
view, and beating the windows of the farmhouse, whose inmates were
nevertheless unmindful of the storm save as they hoped the morrow would
prove bright and fair, such as the day should be which brought them back
their Katy. Nearly worn out with constant reference was her letter, the
mother catching it up from time to time to read the part referring to
herself, the place where Katy had told how blessed it would be "to rest
again on mother's bed," just as she had often wished to do, "and hear
mother's voice;" the deacon spelling out by his spluttering tallow
candle, with its long, smoky wick, what she had said of "darling old
Uncle Eph," and the rides into the fields which she should have with
him; Aunt Betsy, too, reading mostly from memory the words: "Good old
Aunt Betsy, with her skirts so limp and short, tell her she will look
handsomer to me than the fairest belle at Newport;" and as often as Aunt
Betsy read it she would ejaculate: "The land! what kind of company must
the child have kept?" wondering next if Helen had never written of the
hoop, for which she had paid a dollar, and which was carefully hung in
her closet, waiting for the event of to-morrow, while the hem of her
pongee had been let down and one breadth added to accommodate the hoop.
On the whole, Aunt Betsy expected to make a stylish appearance before
the little lady of whom she stood slightly in awe, always speaking of
her to the