Family Pride

To Katy she was very gracious, admiring her house, admiring herself, admiring everything, until Katy wondered how she could ever have dreaded to meet her, laughing and chatting as familiarly as if the fashionable woman were not criticising every movement and every act and every feature of her face, wondering most at the flour upon her hair!

Juno wondered, too, but knowing Katy's domestic propensities, suspected the truth, and feigning some errand with Phillips, she excused herself for a moment and descended to the kitchen, where she was not long in hearing about Katy's queer ways, coming where she was not needed, and making country puddings after some heathenish aunt's rule.

"Was it Aunt Betsy?" Juno asked, her face betokening its disgust when told that she was right, and her manner on her return to the parlor very frigid toward Katy, who had discovered the flour on her hair, and was laughing merrily over it, telling Sybil how it happened--how cross Phillips was--and lastly, how "our folks" often made the pudding, and that was why she wished to surprise Wilford with it.

There was a sarcastic smile upon Sybil's lip as she wished Mrs. Cameron success and then departed, leaving Katy to finish the dessert, which, when ready for the table, was certainly very inviting, and would have tempted the appetite of any man who had not been listener to matters not wholly conducive to his peace of mind.

On his way home Wilford had stopped at his father's, finding Juno, who had just come in, relating the particulars of her call upon his wife, and as she did not think it necessary to stop for him, he heard of Katy's misdoings, and her general appearance in the presence of Sybil Grandon, whom she entertained with a description of "our folks'" favorite dishes, together with Aunt Betsy's receipts. This was the straw too many, and since his marriage Wilford had not been as angry as he was while listening to Juno, who reported Sybil's verdict on his wife, "A domestic little body and very pretty."

Wilford did not care to have his wife domestic; he did not marry her for that, and in a mood anything but favorable to the light, delicate dessert Katy had prepared with so much care, he went to his luxurious home, where Katy ran as usual to meet him, her face brimming with the surprise she had in store for him, and herself so much excited that she did not at first observe the cloud upon his brow, as he moodily answered her rapid questions. But when the important moment arrived, and the dessert was brought on, he promptly declined it, even after her explanation that she made it herself, just to gratify and astonish him, urging him to try it for the sake of pleasing her, if nothing more. But Wilford was not hungry then, and even had he been, he would have chosen anything before a pudding formed from a receipt of Betsy Barlow, so the dessert was untasted even by Katy herself, who, knowing now that something had gone wrong, sat fighting back her tears until the servant left the room, when she timidly asked: "What is it, Wilford? What makes you seem so--". She would not say cross, and substituted "queer," while Wilford plunged at once into the matter by saying, "Juno tells me she called here this afternoon with Mrs. Grandon."