"I shall sleep so nicely here," she said, tossing her hat into Helen's lap, and lying down at once upon the bed it had taken so long to make. "Yes, I shall rest so nicely, knowing I can wear my wrapper all day long. Don't look so horrified, Wilford," she added, as she caught his eye. "I shall dress me sometimes; but you don't know what a luxury it is to feel that I need not unless I like."
"Didn't you rest at New London?" Helen asked, when Wilford had left the room.
"Yes, some," Katy replied; "but there were dances every night, or sails upon the bay, and I had to go, for many of our friends were there, and Wilford was not willing for me to be quiet."
This, then, was the reason why Katy came home so weary and pale, and craving so much the rest she had not had in more than two years. But she would get it now, and before the first dinner was eaten some of her old color came stealing back to her cheeks, and her eyes began to dance just as they used to do, while her merry voice rang out in silvery peals at Aunt Betsy's quaint remarks, which struck her so forcibly from not having heard them for so long a tune. A hit of a lecture Wilford deemed it his duty to give her when after dinner they sat together alone for half an hour. "She must restrain herself. Surely she was old enough to be more womanly, and she would tire herself out with her nervous restlessness, besides giving the people a bad opinion of Mrs. Wilford Cameron."
To this Katy listened quietly, breathing freer when it was over, and breathing freer still when Wilford was gone, even though her tears did fall as she watched him out of sight, and knew it would be at least four weeks before she saw him again. To the entire family his departure brought relief; but they were not prepared for the change it produced in Katy; who, freed from all restraint, came back so soon to what she was when a young, careless girl she sat upon the doorsteps and curled the dandelion stalks. She did not do this now, for there were none to curl; but she strung upon a thread the delicate petals of the phlox growing by the door, and then bound it as a crown about the head of her mother, who could not yet quite recognize her Katy in the elegant Mrs. Wilford Cameron, with rustling silk, and diamonds flashing on her hands every time they moved. But when she saw her racing with the old brown goat and its little kid out in the apple orchard, her head uncovered, and her bright curls blowing about her face, the feeling disappeared, and she felt that Katy had indeed come back again.