eception concerning Genevra, Wilford might never have gone to
the war, or they been without a son. He did not reproach her at all, but
soothed her tenderly, calling her even by her maiden name, and awkwardly
smoothing her hair, silvered now with gray, feeling for a moment that
Wilford had not died in vain, if by his dying he gave back to his father
the wife so lost during the many years since fashion and folly had been
the idols she worshiped. But the habits of years could not be lightly
broken, and Mrs. Cameron's mind soon became absorbed in the richness of
her mourning, and the strict etiquette of her mourning days. To Katy she
was very kind, caressing her with unwonted affection, and scarcely
suffering her to leave her sight, much less to stay even for a day at
Mrs. Banker's, where Katy secretly preferred to be. Of Genevra, too, she
talked with Katy, and at her instigation wrote a friendly letter,
thanking Miss Lambert for all her kindness to her son, expressing her
sorrow that she had ever been so unjust to her, and sending her a
handsome locket, containing on one side a lock of Wilford's hair, and on
the other his picture, taken from a large-sized photograph. Mrs. Cameron
felt herself a very good woman after she had done all this, together
with receiving Mrs. Lennox at her own house, and entertaining her for
one whole day; but at heart there was no real change, and as time passed
on she gradually fell back into her old ways of thinking, and went no
more for comfort to her husband as she had on that first night after the
burial.

With Mr. Cameron the blow struck deeper, and his Wall Street friends
talked together of the old man he had grown since Wilford died, while
Katy often found him bending over his long-neglected Bible, as he sat
alone in his room at night. And when at last she ventured to speak to
him upon the all-important subject, like a little child, he put his hand
in hers, and bade her teach him the narrow way which she had found, and
wherein Wilford, too, had walked at the very last, they hoped.

For many weeks Katy lingered in New York, and the June roses were
blooming when she went back to Silverton, a widow and the rightful owner
of all Wilford's ample fortune. They had found among his papers a will,
drawn up and executed not long before his illness, and in which Katy was
made his heiress, without condition or stipulation. All was hers to do
with as she pleased, and the bitterest tears she ever shed w