you have been so shy of me," Morris said. "It was
only natural you should be until you knew what my intentions were; but,
Katy, must this shyness continue always? Think now, and say if you did
not tell more than one falsehood the other night, as you count
falsehoods."

Katy looked wonderingly at him, and he continued;

"You said you could not be my wife. Was that true? Can't you take it
back, and give me a different answer?"

Katy's checks were scarlet, and her hands had ceased to flutter about
the knitting which lay upon her lap.

"I meant what I said," she whispered; "for knowing, as I do, how Wilford
felt, it would not be right for me to be so happy."

"Then it's nothing personal? If there were no harrowing memories of
Wilford, you could be happy with me. Is that it, Katy?" Morris asked,
coming close to her now, and imprisoning her hands, which she did not
try to take away, but let them lie in his as he continued: "Wilford was
willing at the last. Have you forgotten that?"

"I had, until Helen reminded me." Katy replied. "But, Morris, the
talking of this thing brings Wilford's death back so vividly, making it
seem but yesterday since I held his dying head."

She was beginning to relent, Morris knew, and bending nearer to her, he
said:

"It was not yesterday. It will be two years in February; and this, you
know, is November. I need you, Katy. I want you so much. I have wanted
you all your life. Before it was wrong to do so I used each day to pray
that God would give you to me, and now I feel just as sure that he has
opened the way for you to come to me as I am sure that Wilford is in
heaven. He is happy there, and shall a morbid fancy keep you from being
happy here? Tell me then, Katy, will you be my wife?"

He was kissing her cold hands, and as he did so he felt her tears
dropping on his hair.

"If I say yes, Morris, you will not think that I never loved Wilford,
for I did, oh yes, I did. Not exactly as I supposed I might, even then,
have loved you, had you asked me first, but I loved him, and I was happy
with him, or if there were little clouds, his dying swept them all
away."

Katy was proving herself a true woman, who remembered only the good
there was in Wilford, and Morris did not love her less for it. She was
all the dearer to him, all the more desirable. Once he told her so,
winding his arms about her, and resting her head upon his shoulder,
where it lay just as it had never lain before, for with