In her excitement Katy did not observe it, but Morris did, and he at first declined taking it, saying Helen had no use for it and would be better pleased with something not half as valuable.  Katy, however, insisted, appealing to Wilford, who, ashamed of his first emotion, now seemed quite as anxious as Katy herself, until Morris placed the ring in his purse, and then bade Katy hasten or she would certainly be left.  One more wave of the hand, one more kiss thrown from the window, and the train moved on, Katy feeling like a different creature for having seen some one from home.

“I am so glad I saw him—­so glad I sent the ring, for now they will know I am the same Katy Lennox, and I think Helen sometimes feared I might get proud with you,” she said, while Wilford pulled her rich fur around her, smiling to see how bright and pretty she was looking since that meeting with Dr. Grant.  “It was better than medicine,” Katy said, when beyond Springfield he referred to it a second time, and leaning her head upon his shoulder she fell into a refreshing sleep, from which she did not waken until New York was reached, and Wilford, lifting her gently up, whispered to her:  “Come, darling, we are home at last.”

CHAPTER XIII.

Katy’s first evening in new York.

The elder Cameron was really better, and more than once he had regretted recalling his son, who he knew had contemplated a longer stay abroad.  But that could not now be helped; Wilford had arrived in Boston, as his telegram of yesterday announced—­he would be at home to-day; and No ——­ Fifth Avenue was all the morning and a portion of the afternoon the scene of unusual excitement, for both Mrs. Cameron and her daughters wished to give the six months’ wife a good impression of her new home.  At first they thought of inviting company to dinner, but to this the father objected.  “Katy should not be troubled the first day,” he said; “it was bad enough for her to meet them all; they could ask Mark if they chose, but no one else.”

And so only Mark Ray was invited to the dinner, gotten up as elaborately as if a princess had been expected instead of little Katy, trembling in every joint, when, about four P.M., Wilford awoke her at the depot and whispered:  “Come, darling, we are home at last.”

“Why do you shiver so?” he asked, wrapping her cloak around her, and almost lifting her from the car.

“I don’t—­know.  I guess—­I’m cold,” and Katy drew a long breath as she thought of Silverton and the farmhouse, wishing so much that she was going into its low-walled kitchen, where the cook-stove was, and where the chairs were all splint-bottomed, instead of into the handsome carriage, where the cushions were so soft and yielding, and the whole effect so grand.