in Silverton, when they sat beneath the butternut tree, with the fresh young grass springing around them.  Then, she was not his wife, and the fear that she would not be if he told her all had kept him silent, but now she was his alone; nothing could undo that, and there, in the shadow of the gray old church through whose aisles Genevra had been borne out to where the rude headstone was gleaming in the English sunlight, it seemed meet that he should tell her sad story.  And Katy would have forgiven him then, for not a shadow of regret had darkened her life since it was linked with his, and in her perfect love she could have pardoned much.  But Wilford did not tell.  It was not needful; he made himself believe—­not necessary for her ever to know that once he met a maiden called Genevra, almost as beautiful as she, but never so beloved.  No, never.  Wilford said that truly, when that night he bent over his sleeping Katy, comparing her face with Genevra’s, and his love for her with his love for Genevra.

“That was a boyish fancy, this love of mature years,” and Wilford pressed a kiss upon Katy’s pure forehead, showing so white in the moonlight.

Wilford was very fond of his girlish wife and very proud of her, too, when strangers paused, as they often did, to look back after her.  Thus far nothing had arisen to mar the happiness of his first weeks of married life; nothing except the letters from Silverton, over which Katy always cried, until he sometimes wished that the family could not write.  But they could and they did; even Aunt Betsy inclosed in Helen’s letter a note, wonderful both in orthography and composition, and concluding with the remark that she would be glad when Catherine returned and was settled in a home of her own, as she would then have a new place to visit.

There was a dark frown on Wilford’s face, and for a moment he felt tempted to withhold the note from Katy, but this he could not do then, so he gave it into her hands, watching her as with burning cheeks, she read it through, and asking her at its close why she looked so red.

“Oh, Wilford,” and she crept closely to him, “Aunt Betsy spells so queerly, that I was wishing you would not always open my letters first.  Do all husbands do so?”

It was the only time Katy had ventured to question a single act of his, submitting without a word to whatever was his will.  Wilford knew that his father would never have presumed to break a seal belonging to his mother, but he had broken Katy’s and he should continue breaking them, so he answered, laughingly;

“Why, yes, I guess they do.  My little wife has surely no secrets to hide from me?”

“No secrets,” Katy answered, “only I did not want you to see Aunt Betsy’s letter, that’s all.”

“I did not marry Aunt Betsy—­I married you,” was Wilford’s reply; which meant far more than Katy guessed.