Katy did not reply, but struck softly the chords of the piano and thought how foolish she was to feel as she did.  Suppose Morris had loved her once, he probably did not now, and even if he did, it could do no good, for she was the same as dead to all that kind of thing.  She had tried matrimony, and found it—­she did not say what.  She never allowed herself to think an unkind thing of Wilford if she could help it, but a tear dropped upon the piano keys as she unconsciously hummed a part of the song commencing “I would not, no, I would not, recall the past again, for mingled with the pleasure was too much grief and pain.”

Katy’s tears were falling fast by the time the song was ended, but she dashed them away and sprang from the stool, exclaiming: 

“Crying because Morris is coming home, poor, worn-out, half-blind Morris, who has done so much for the soldiers, I will go up and welcome him.  I will not be so silly as to imagine he still retains a fancy for an old woman of twenty-three, even if he had one for the girl of seventeen.”

Katy felt very old just then, and walking to the glass, was almost vexed at the smooth, round face which met her view.

“I ought to look older at twenty-three,” she said.  “Morris will think I have not mourned a bit, nor cared for Wilford,” and another tear glistened on her eyelashes as she thought of being accused of forgetfulness of the dead.

Katy did look very young for twenty-three.  Her health was perfect now, and save as the change in her character showed itself upon her face, she had scarcely changed at all since the day when she came home from Canandaigua with her heart and head so full of him who now lay sleeping in Greenwood.

“I know what’s the matter.  It’s the net,” she said, frowning disapprovingly upon the silken meshes which confined her hair.  “Yes, it’s nothing but this net which makes me look so young.  Every schoolgirl wears one, and I have followed the fashion, letting it hang down my back in a way very unbecoming to a widow of my age.  I’ll take it off, or at all events I won’t wear it to Linwood,” and tossing aside the offending net, Katy bound her luxuriant hair in bands which she coiled around the back of her head and then put on the widow’s cap, discarded so many months, and from which she shrank a little as she surveyed herself in the glass.

It was not exactly unbecoming; nothing could be unbecoming to that fair, open face, which, surrounded by the white border, looked much like a sweet baby’s face, except that it was older; but it was now so long since Katy had seen anything of the kind, and as habit is everything, she was not quite as well pleased with her headgear as in New York, where such things were common.  Nevertheless, she would wear it to Linwood, and she went for her round straw hat, but, alas, the sun hat which made her look so frightfully young was not made for the widow’s cap, and casting it aside, Katy threw a thick black veil over her head, and then stepping to the door of the room where her mother and Aunt Betsy were busy at work, she said: