Family Pride

Very rapidly Katy's eyes swept the house, running over the sea of heads below but failing to see the figure which, half arising from its seat, stood with clasped hands, gazing upon her, the tears running like rain over the upturned face, and the lips murmuring: "Darling Katy! blessed child! She's thinner than when I see her last, but oh! so beautiful and grand! Precious lambkin! It isn't wicked now for me to be coming here, where I can see her face again."

It was all in vain that Mattie pulled her dress, bidding her sit down as people were staring at her. Aunt Betsy did not hear, and if she had she would scarcely have cared for those who did look at her, and who, following her eyes, saw the beautiful young ladies, behind whom Wilford and Mark were standing, but never dreamed of associating them with the "crazy thing" who sank back at last into her seat, keeping her eyes still upon the box where Helen and Katy sat, their heads uncovered and their rich cloaks falling off just enough to show the astonished woman that both their necks were uncovered, too, while Helen's arms, raised to adjust her glass, were discovered to be in the same condition.

"Ain't they splendid in full dress?" Mattie whispered, while Aunt Betsy replied: "Call that full dress? I'd sooner say it was no dress at all! They'll catch their death of cold. What would their mother say?"

Then as the enormity of the act grew upon her, she continued more to herself than to Mattie: "I mistrusted Catherine, but that Helen should come to this passes me."

Still as she became more accustomed to it, and glanced at other full-dressed ladies, the first shock passed away, and she could calmly contemplate Katy's dress, wondering what it cost, and then letting her eyes pass on to Helen, to whom Mark Ray seemed so loverlike that Aunt Betsy remembered her impressions when he stopped at Silverton, her heart swelling with pride as she thought of both the girls making out so well.

"Who is that young man talking to Helen?" Mattie asked, between the acts, and when told that it was "Mr. Ray, Wilford's partner," she drew her breath eagerly, and turned again to watch him, envying the young girl who did not seem as much gratified with the attentions as Mattie fancied she should do were she in Helen's place.

How could she, with Juno Cameron just opposite, watching her jealously, while Madam Cameron fanned herself in dignity, refusing to look upon what she so greatly disapproved.