ed
taking the precedence of the others.

But with the daylight her fears subsided, and at the breakfast table
she was hardly less enthusiastic over the opera than Mattie herself,
averring, however; that "once would do her and she had no wish to go
again."

The sight of Katy looking so frail and delicate, but so beautiful
withal, had awakened all the olden intense love she had felt for her
darling, and she could not wait much longer without seeing her "in her
own home and hearing her blessed voice."

"Hannah, and Lucy amongst 'em, advised me not to come," she said to Mrs.
Tubbs, "hinting that I might not be wanted up there; but now I'm here I
shall go if I don't stay more than an hour."

"Of course I should," Mattie answered, herself anxious to stand beneath
Wilford Cameron's roof and see Mrs. Wilford at home. "She don't look as
proud as Helen, and you are her aunt, her blood kin, so why shouldn't
you go there if you like?"

"I shall--I am going," Aunt Betsy replied, feeling that to take Mattie
with her was not quite the thing, and not exactly knowing how to manage,
for the girl must of course pilot the way. "I'll risk it and trust to
Providence," was her final decision, and so after an early lunch she
started out with Mattie as her escort, suggesting that they visit
Wilford's office first and get that affair out of her mind.

At this point Aunt Betsy began to look upon herself as a most hardened
wretch, wondering at the depths of iniquity to which she had fallen. The
opera was the least of her offenses, for she was not harboring pride and
contriving how to be rid of 'Tilda Tubbs, as clever a girl as ever
lived, hoping that if she found Wilford he would see her home, and so
save 'Tilda the trouble? Playhouses, pride, vanity, subterfuge and
deceit--it was a long catalogue she would have to confess to Deacon
Bannister, if confess she did, and with a groan the conscience-smitten
woman followed her conductor along the street, and at last into the
stage which took them to Wilford's office.

Broadway was literally jammed that day, and the aid of two policemen was
required to extricate the bewildered countrywoman from the mass of
vehicles and horses' heads, which took all her sense away. Trembling
like a leaf when Mattie explained that the "two nice men" who had
dragged her to the walk were police officers, and thinking again of the
subpoena, the frightened woman who had escaped such peril, followed up
the two flights