Family Pride

Wilford did not tell her that her opinion was not desired, but his manner implied as much, and Helen felt the angry blood prickling through her veins as she listened to his reply, that it was neither unnatural nor cruel, that many people did it, and his would not be an isolated case.

"Then if it must be," Helen said, "pray let it go to Silverton, and I will be its nurse. Katy will not object to that."

In a very ironical tone Wilford thanked her for her offer, which he begged leave to decline, intimating a preference for settling his own matters according to his own ideas. Helen knew that further argument was useless, and but for Katy, wished herself at home, where there were no wills like this with which she had unwittingly come in contact, and which, ignoring Katy's tears and Katy's pleading face, would not retract one iota, or even stoop to reason with the suffering mother, except to reiterate, "It is only for your good, and every one with common sense will say so."

Next morning Helen was surprised at Katy's proposition to drive around to Fourth Street, and call on Marian, whom they had not seen for several days.

"I am always better after talking with her," Katy said, "And I have a strong presentiment that she can do me good."

"Shall you tell her?" Helen asked in some surprise; and Katy replied, "perhaps I may. I'll see."

An hour later, and Katy, up in Marian's room, sat with her hands clasped together upon the table, listening intently while Marian spoke of a letter received a few days since from an old friend who had worked with her at Madam ----'s, and to whom she had been strongly attached, keeping up a correspondence with her after her marriage and removal to New London, in Connecticut; and whose little child, born two months before Katy's, was dead, and the mother, finding her home so desolate, had written, beseeching Marian to come to her for the remainder of the winter, adding in conclusion: "If you know of any little homeless baby, bring it to me in place of mine, which God has taken. I shall thus be doing good, and in part forget my sorrow."

Instantly Helen and Katy glanced at each other, the same thought flashing upon both, and finding form in Katy's vehement outburst, "If Mrs. Hubbell would take baby, and Marian would go, too, I should be so happy."

In a few moments Marian had heard Katy's trouble--struggling hard to fight back the giddy faintness she felt stealing over her, as she thought of nursing Wilford Cameron's child.