It took but a short time for Wilford to fall back into his old way of living, passing a few hours of each day in his office, driving with his mother, reading to little Jamie, sparring with his imperious sister, Juno, and teasing his blue sister, Bell, but never after that first night breathing a word to any one of Katy Lennox.  And still Katy was not forgotten, as his mother sometimes believed.  On the contrary, the very silence he kept concerning her increased his passion, until he began seriously to contemplate a trip to Silverton.  The family’s removal to Newport, however, diverted his attention for a little, making him decide to wait and see what Newport might have in store for him.  But Newport was dull this season, at least to him, though Juno and Bell both found ample scope for their different powers of attraction, and his mother was always happy when showing off her children and knowing that they were appreciated.  With Wilford it was different.  Listless and taciturn, he went through with the daily routine, wondering how he had ever found happiness there, and finally, at the close of the season, casting all policy and prudence aside, he wrote to Katy Lennox that he was coming to Silverton on his way home, and that he presumed he should have no difficulty in finding his way to the farmhouse.

CHAPTER IV.

Preparing for the visit.

“Of course he will not, for I shall ask Dr. Morris to go after him in his carriage,” Katy said, as out in the orchard where she was gathering the early harvest apples she read the letter brought her by Uncle Ephraim, her face crimsoning all over with happy blushes as she saw the dear affixed to her name.

Katy had waited so anxiously for a letter, or some message which should say that she was not forgotten by Wilford Cameron, but as the weeks went by and it did not come, a shadow had fallen upon her spirits, and the family missed something from her ringing laugh and frolicsome ways, while she herself wondered why the household duties given to her should be so utterly distasteful.  She used to enjoy them so much, but now she liked nothing except to go with Uncle Ephraim out into the fields where she could sit alone while he worked nearby, or to ride with Morris as she sometimes did when he made his round of calls.  She was not as good as she used to be, she thought, and with a view of making herself better she took to teaching in Morris’ and Helen’s Sunday-school, greatly to the distress of Aunt Betsy, who groaned bitterly when both her nieces adopted the “Episcopal quirks,” forsaking entirely the house where Sunday after Sunday her old-fashioned leghorn with its faded ribbon of green was seen, bending down in the humble worship which God so much approves.  But teaching in Sunday-school, taken by itself, could not make Katy better, and the old restlessness remained until the morning when, sitting on the grass beneath