you
were half vexed with Katy because it was not a boy, as if she were to
blame; then you did not like it because it was not more promising and
fair; next it was in your way, and so you sent it off, never considering
Katy any more than if she were a mere automaton, to turn which way you
said. Then you must needs forbid her taking it home to her own family,
as if they had no right, no interest in it. I tell you, Will, it is not
all Cameron--there is some Barlow blood in its veins--Aunt Betsy
Barlow's, too, and you cannot wash it out. Katy had a right to take her
own child where she pleased, and you are not a man if you censure her
for it, as I see in your eyes you mean to do. Suppose it had stayed in
New London and been struck with lightning--you would have been to blame,
of course, according to your own view of things."

There was too much truth in Bell's remarks for Wilford to retort, even
had he been disposed, and he contented himself with a haughty toss of
his head as she left the room to get herself in readiness for the
journey she insisted upon taking. Wilford was glad she was going, as her
presence at Silverton would relieve him of the awkward embarrassment he
always felt when there; and magnanimously forgiving her for the
plainness of her speech, he was the most attentive of brothers until
Silverton was reached and he found Dr. Grant waiting for him. Something
in his face, as he came forward to meet them, startled both Wilford and
Bell, the latter of whom asked quickly:

"Is the baby better?"

"Baby is dead," was the brief reply, and Wilford staggered back against
the doorpost, where he leaned a moment for support in that first great
shock for which he was not prepared.

"Dead," he repeated, "our baby dead," and Morris was glad that he said
our, as it indicated a thought of Katy as a mutual sharer in the loss.

Upon the doorstep Bell sat down, crying quietly, for she had loved the
little child, and she listened anxiously while Morris repeated the
particulars of its illness and then spoke of Katy's reproaching herself
so bitterly for having brought it from New London. "She seems entirely
crushed," he continued, when they were driving toward the farmhouse.
"For a few hours I trembled for her reason, while the fear that you
might reproach her added much to the poignancy of her grief."

Morris said this very calmly, as if it were not what he had all the
while intended saying, and his eye turned toward Wilford,