neighbors as "My niece, Miss Cameron, from New York," and
taking good care to report what she had heard of "Miss Cameron's" costly
dress and the grandeur of her house, where the furniture of the best
chamber cost over fifteen hundred dollars.

"What could it be--gold?" Aunt Betsy had asked in her simplicity,
feeling an increased respect for Katy, and consenting the more readily
to the change in her pongee, as suggested to her by Helen.

But that was for to-morrow when Katy came; to-night she only wore a
dotted brown, whose hem just reached the top of her "bootees," as she
stood by the window, wondering, first, if the rain would ever stop, and
wondering, secondly, where all them fish worms, squirming on the grass
by the back door, did come from. Needn't tell her they crawled out of
the ground; she knew better--they rained from the clouds, though she
should s'pose that somebody would sometime have catched one on their
bunnet or umberill. Dammed if she didn't mean to stand out o' doors some
day till she was wet to the skin, and see what would come, and having
thus settled a way by which to decide the only question, except that of
the "'Piscopal Church and its quirks," on which she was still obstinate,
Aunt Betsy went to strain the milk just brought by Uncle Ephraim, while
Helen took her position near the window, looking drearily out upon the
leaden clouds, and hoping it would brighten before the morrow. Like the
others, Helen had read Katy's letter many times, dwelling longest upon
the part which said: "I have been so bad, so frivolous and wicked here
at Newport, that it will be a relief to make you my confessor,
depending, as I do, upon your love to grant me absolution."

From a family at Silverton, who had spent a few days at a private house
in Newport, Helen had heard something of her sister's life; the lady had
seen her once driving a tandem team, or as Aunt Betsy had it, "driving
tanterum," down the avenue, with Wilford at her side giving her
instructions. Since then there had been some anxiety felt for her at the
farmhouse, and more than Dr. Grant had prayed that she might be kept
unspotted from the world; but when her letter came, so full of love and
self-reproaches, the burden was lifted, and there was nothing to mar
the anticipations of the events for which they had made so many
preparations, Uncle Ephraim going to the expense of buying at auction a
half-worn, covered buggy, which he fancied would suit Katy bette