Family Pride

It had not been a house of prayer--no altar had been erected for the morning and evening sacrifice. God had almost been forgotten, and now He was pouring His wrath upon the handsome dwelling, making it so distasteful that Katy was anxious to leave it, and expressed her willingness to accompany Uncle Ephraim to Silverton as soon as the necessary arrangements could be made.

"I don't take it she comes for good," Uncle Ephraim said that evening, when Mr. Cameron, to whom she referred the matter, opposed her going, "for when the two years are gone, and her man wants her back, as he will, she must come, of course. But she grows poor here in the city. It don't agree with her like the scent of the clover and the breeze from the hills. So, shet up the house for a spell, and let the child come with me."

Mr. Cameron knew that Katy would be happier at Silverton, and though he disliked to part with her, he finally consented to her going, and placed at her disposal a sum which seemed to the deacon a little fortune in itself.

In the kitchen there were sad faces when the servants heard of the arrangement which was to deprive them not only of a pleasant home, but of a mistress whom they both respected and loved. Esther pleaded hard to go with Katy, and only the latter's promise that possibly she might come by and by was of any avail to stay the tears which dropped so fast as she put up her mistress' dresses, designed for Silverton, and laid away the gayer, richer ones, which would be so sadly out of place upon her now.

To Mrs. Cameron and Juno it was a relief to have Katy taken from their hands, and though they made a show of opposition, they were easily quieted, and helped her off with alacrity, the mother promising to see that the horse was promptly called for, and Juno offering to send the latest fashion which might be suitable, as soon as it appeared. Bell was heartily sorry to part with the young sister who seemed going from her forever.

"I know you will never come back. Something tells me so," she said as she stood with her arms around Katy's waist, and her lips occasionally touching Katy's forehead. "But I shall see you," she continued; "I am coming to the farmhouse in the summer, to stay ever so long; and you may say to Aunt Betsy that I like her ever so much, and"--here Bell glanced behind her, to see that no one was listening, and then continued--"tell her a certain officer was sick a few days in a hospital last winter, and one of his men brought to him a dish of the most delicious dried peaches he ever ate. That man was from Silverton, and the fruit was sent to him, he said, in a salt bag, by a nice old lady, for whose brother he used to work. Just to think, that the peaches I helped to pare, coloring my hands so that the stain did not come off in a month, should have gone so straight to Bob," and Bell's fine features shone with a light which would have told Bob Reynolds he was beloved, even if the lips did not refuse to confess it.