Poor, ignorant Katy! Wilford could not forbear a smile as he thought how different were her views from his, and tried to explain that the art of bread-making, though very desirable in most wives, was not an essential accomplishment for his. Servants would do that; besides he did not intend to have a house of his own at once; he should take her first to live with his mother, where she could learn what was necessary much better than there in Silverton.
Wilford Cameron expected to be obeyed in every important matter by the happy person who should be his wife, and as he possessed the faculty of enforcing perfect obedience without seeming to be severe, so he silenced Katy's arguments, and when they left the shadow of the butternut tree she knew that in all human probability six weeks' time would find her on the broad ocean alone with Wilford Cameron. So perfect was Katy's faith and love that she had no fear of Wilford now, but as his affianced wife walked confidently by his side, feeling fully his equal, nor once dreaming how great the disparity his city friends would discover between the fastidious man of fashion and the unsophisticated country girl. And Wilford did not seek to enlighten her, but suffered her to talk of the delight it would be to live in New York, and how pleasant for mother and Helen to visit her, especially the latter, who would thus have a chance to see something of the world.
"When I get a house of my own I mean she shall live with me all the while," she said, stooping to gather a tuft of wild bluebells growing in a marshy spot.
Wilford winced a little, for in his estimation Helen Lennox formed no part of that household to be established on Madison Square, but he would not so soon tear down Katy's castles, and so he merely remarked as she asked if it would not be nice to have Helen with them.
"Yes, very nice, but do not speak of it to her yet, as it will probably be some time before she will come to us, and she had better not have it in anticipation."
And so Helen never knew the honor in store for her as she stood in the doorway anxiously waiting for her sister, who, she feared, would take cold from being out so long. Something though in Katy's face made her guess that to her was lost forever the bright little sister whom she loved so dearly, and fleeing up the narrow stairway to her room she wept bitterly as she thought of the coming time when she would share that room alone, and know that never again would a little golden head lie upon her neck just as it had lain, for there would be a new love, a new interest between them, a love for the man whose voice she could hear now talking to her mother in the peculiar tone he always assumed when speaking to any one of them excepting Morris or Katy.