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 the apple tree, she read that Wilford
Cameron was coming. Then, as by magic, everything was changed, and Katy
never forgot the brightness of that day when the robins sang so merrily
above her head and all nature seemed to sympathize with her joy.
Afterward there came to her dark, wretched hours, when in her young
heart's agony she wished that day had never been, but there was no
shadow around her now, nothing but hopeful sunshine, and with a bounding
step she sought out Helen, to tell her the good news. Helen's first
remark, however, was a chill upon her spirits.

"Wilford Cameron coming here? What will he think of us, we are so unlike
him?"

This was the first time Katy had seriously considered the difference
between her surroundings and those of Wilford Cameron, or how it might
affect him. But Aunt Betsy, who had never dreamed of anything like
Wilford's home, and who thought her own quite as good as they would
average, comforted her, telling her how "if he was any kind of a chap he