The elder Cameron was really better, and more than once he had regretted recalling his son, who he knew had contemplated a longer stay abroad. But that could not now be helped; Wilford had arrived in Boston, as his telegram of yesterday announced--he would be at home to-day; and No ---- Fifth Avenue was all the morning and a portion of the afternoon the scene of unusual excitement, for both Mrs. Cameron and her daughters wished to give the six months' wife a good impression of her new home. At first they thought of inviting company to dinner, but to this the father objected. "Katy should not be troubled the first day," he said; "it was bad enough for her to meet them all; they could ask Mark if they chose, but no one else."
And so only Mark Ray was invited to the dinner, gotten up as elaborately as if a princess had been expected instead of little Katy, trembling in every joint, when, about four P.M., Wilford awoke her at the depot and whispered: "Come, darling, we are home at last."
"Why do you shiver so?" he asked, wrapping her cloak around her, and almost lifting her from the car.
"I don't--know. I guess--I'm cold," and Katy drew a long breath as she thought of Silverton and the farmhouse, wishing so much that she was going into its low-walled kitchen, where the cook-stove was, and where the chairs were all splint-bottomed, instead of into the handsome carriage, where the cushions were so soft and yielding, and the whole effect so grand.
She knew it was the Cameron carriage, for Wilford had said it would meet them; but she had not expected it to be just what it was, and she bowed humbly to the polite coachman greeting Wilford and herself so respectfully. "What would our folks say?" she kept repeating to herself as she drove along the streets, where they were beginning to light the street lamps, for the December day was dark and cloudy. It seemed so like a dream that she, who once had picked huckleberries on the Silverton hills, and bound coarse, heavy shoes to buy herself a pink gingham dress, should now be riding in her carriage toward the home which she knew was magnificent; and Katy's tears fell like rain as, nestling close to Wilford, who asked what was the matter, she whispered: "I can hardly believe that it is I--it is so unreal."
"Please don't cry," Wilford rejoined, brushing her tears away. "You know I don't like your eyes to be red."