Family Pride

"I won't pull that nub," he said, glancing at the silver knob. "I'll go down to the kitchen door, as like enough they've company."

Accordingly Esther, who chanced to be in the basement, was startled by a heavy knock, and was startled still more at the tall, white-haired man who addressed her as "Sis," and asked if "Miss Cameron was to hum."

"A man in the kitchen asking for me!" Katy exclaimed, when Esther reported the message, and with her mind full of possible news from Wilford, she ran hastily down the basement stairs, and with a loud scream of joy threw herself into Uncle Ephraim's arms, an act which so astonished Phillips that she dropped the dish of soup she was preparing for the dinner table, the greasy liquid bespattering Katy's dress, and bringing her to a sense of where she was, and that she should not be there.

"Come upstairs," she said, holding Uncle Ephraim's hand, and leading him to the parlor, while the first tears she had shed since she knew she was deserted rained in torrents over her face.

"What is it, Katy-did? I mistrusted something was wrong. What has happened?" Uncle Ephraim asked, and with his arm thrown protectingly around her, Katy told him what had happened, and then asking what she should do.

"Do?" the old man repeated. "Go home with me to your own folks until he comes from the wars. He is your husband, and I shall say nothing agin' him, but if it was to do over I would forbid the banns. That chap has misused you the wust way. You need not deny it, for it's writ all over your face," he continued, as Katy tried to stop him, for sore as was her heart with the great injustice done her, she would not have Wilford blamed.

He was her husband still, and she had loved him so fondly that, whether worthy or not of her love, she could not turn from him so soon.

"I wrote to Helen yesterday, so they will be prepared for me," she said, anxious to change the conversation, and feeling glad when dinner was announced.

Leading him to the table, she presented him to Juno, whose cold nod and haughty stare were lost on the old man presiding with so much patriarchal dignity at the table, and bowing his white head so reverently as he asked the first blessing which had ever been said at that table, except as Helen or Morris had breathed a prayer of thanks for the bounty provided.