then, was the reason why Katy came home so weary and pale, and
craving so much the rest she had not had in more than two years. But she
would get it now, and before the first dinner was eaten some of her old
color came stealing back to her cheeks, and her eyes began to dance just
as they used to do, while her merry voice rang out in silvery peals at
Aunt Betsy's quaint remarks, which struck her so forcibly from not
having heard them for so long a tune. A hit of a lecture Wilford deemed
it his duty to give her when after dinner they sat together alone for
half an hour. "She must restrain herself. Surely she was old enough
to be more womanly, and she would tire herself out with her nervous
restlessness, besides giving the people a bad opinion of Mrs. Wilford
Cameron."

To this Katy listened quietly, breathing freer when it was over, and
breathing freer still when Wilford was gone, even though her tears did
fall as she watched him out of sight, and knew it would be at least four
weeks before she saw him again. To the entire family his departure
brought relief; but they were not prepared for the change it produced in
Katy; who, freed from all restraint, came back so soon to what she was
when a young, careless girl she sat upon the doorsteps and curled the
dandelion stalks. She did not do this now, for there were none to curl;
but she strung upon a thread the delicate petals of the phlox growing by
the door, and then bound it as a crown about the head of her mother, who
could not yet quite recognize her Katy in the elegant Mrs. Wilford
Cameron, with rustling silk, and diamonds flashing on her hands every
time they moved. But when she saw her racing with the old brown goat and
its little kid out in the apple orchard, her head uncovered, and her
bright curls blowing about her face, the feeling disappeared, and she
felt that Katy had indeed come back again.

And where all the while was Morris? Were his patients so numerous that
he could not find time to call upon his cousin? Katy had inquired for
him immediately after her arrival, but in her excitement she had
forgotten him again, until Wilford was gone and tea was over, when, just
as she had done on the day of her return from Canandaigua, she took her
hat and started on the well-worn path toward Linwood. She was not going
there, she said, she only wanted to try the road and see if it had
changed since she used to go that way to gather butternuts in the autumn
or berries in th