"I can see the housekeeper and the birds and flowers, and maybe he will
come pretty soon," she said, as she swung her straw hat by the string
and started from the door.

"Ain't Helen going with you?" Aunt Hannah asked, while Helen herself
looked a little surprised.

But Katy would rather go alone. She had a heap to tell Cousin Morris,
and Helen could go next time.

"Just as you like;" Helen answered, good-naturedly; but there was a
half-dissatisfied, wistful look on her face as she watched her young
sister tripping across the fields to call on Morris Grant.




CHAPTER II.

LINWOOD.


Morris had returned from Spencer, and in his dressing-gown and slippers
was sitting by the window of his cheerful library, looking out upon the
purple sunshine flooding the western sky, and thinking of the little
girl coming so rapidly up the grassy lane in the rear of the house. He
was going over to see her by and by, he said, and he pictured to himself
how she must look by this time, hoping that he should not find her
greatly changed, for Morris Grant's memories were very precious of the
playful child who, in that very room where he was sitting, used to tease