pattering Katy's dress, and
bringing her to a sense of where she was, and that she should not be
there.

"Come upstairs," she said, holding Uncle Ephraim's hand, and leading him
to the parlor, while the first tears she had shed since she knew she was
deserted rained in torrents over her face.

"What is it, Katy-did? I mistrusted something was wrong. What has
happened?" Uncle Ephraim asked, and with his arm thrown protectingly
around her, Katy told him what had happened, and then asking what she
should do.

"Do?" the old man repeated. "Go home with me to your own folks until he
comes from the wars. He is your husband, and I shall say nothing agin'
him, but if it was to do over I would forbid the banns. That chap has
misused you the wust way. You need not deny it, for it's writ all over
your face," he continued, as Katy tried to stop him, for sore as was her
heart with the great injustice done her, she would not have Wilford
blamed.

He was her husband still, and she had loved him so fondly that, whether
worthy or not of her love, she could not turn from him so soon.

"I wrote to Helen yesterday, so they will be prepared for me," she said,
anxious to change the conversation, and feeling glad when dinner was
announced.

Leading him to the table, she presented him to Juno, whose cold nod
and haughty stare were lost on the old man presiding with so much
patriarchal dignity at the table, and bowing his white head so
reverently as he asked the first blessing which had ever been said at
that table, except as Helen or Morris had breathed a prayer of thanks
for the bounty provided.

It had not been a house of prayer--no altar had been erected for the
morning and evening sacrifice. God had almost been forgotten, and now He
was pouring His wrath upon the handsome dwelling, making it so
distasteful that Katy was anxious to leave it, and expressed her
willingness to accompany Uncle Ephraim to Silverton as soon as the
necessary arrangements could be made.

"I don't take it she comes for good," Uncle Ephraim said that evening,
when Mr. Cameron, to whom she referred the matter, opposed her going,
"for when the two years are gone, and her man wants her back, as he
will, she must come, of course. But she grows poor here in the city. It
don't agree with her like the scent of the clover and the breeze from
the hills. So, shet up the house for a spell, and let the child come
with me."

Mr. Cameron knew that Katy would be happier