Family Pride; Or, Purified by Suffering. Mary Jane Holmes
he turned to her at last and said:
"Did my little Cousin Kitty like Wilford Cameron?"
Something in Morris' voice startled Katy strangely; her hand came down from his shoulder, and for an instant there swept over her an emotion similar to what she had felt when with Wilford Cameron she rambled along the shores of Lake George, or sat alone with him on the deck of the steamer which carried them down Lake Champlain. But Morris had always been her brother, and she did not guess how hard it was for him to keep from telling her then that she was more to him than a sister. Had he told her, this story, perhaps, had not been written; but he kept silence, and so it is ours to record how Katy answered frankly at last: "I guess I did like him a little. I could not help it, Morris. You could not, either, or any one. I believe Mrs. Woodhull was more than half in love with him, and she is an old woman compared with me. By the way, what did she mean by introducing me to him as the daughter of Judge Lennox? I meant to have asked her, but forgot it afterward. Was father ever a judge?"
"Not properly," Morris replied. "He was justice of the peace in Bloomfield, where you were born, and for one year held the office of side or associate judge, that's all. Few ever gave him that title, and I wonder at Mrs. Woodhull. Possibly she fancied Mr. Cameron would think better of you if he supposed you the daughter of a judge."
"That may be, though I do not believe he would, do you?"
Morris did not say what he thought, but quietly remarked, instead: "I know those Camerons."
"What! Wilford! You don't know Wilford?" Katy almost screamed, and Morris replied: "Not Wilford, no; but the mother and the sisters were last year in Paris, and I met them many times."
"What were they doing in Paris?" Katy asked, and Morris replied that he believed the immediate object of their being there was to obtain the best medical advice for a little orphan grandchild, a bright, beautiful boy, to whom some terrible accident had happened in infancy, preventing his walking entirely, and making him nearly helpless. His name was Jamie, Morris said, and as he saw that Katy was interested, he told her how sweet-tempered the little fellow was, how patient under suffering, and how eagerly he listened when Morris, who at one time attended him, told him of the Savior and His love for little children.
"Did he get well?" Katy asked, her eyes filling with tears at the picture Morris drew of Jamie Cameron, sitting all day long in his wheel chair, and trying to comfort his grandmother's distress when the torturing instruments for straightening his poor back were applied.
"No, he will always be a cripple, till God takes him to Himself," Morris said, and then Katy asked about the mother and sisters—were they proud, and did he like them much?
"They were very proud," Morris said; "but they were always civil to me," and Katy, had she been watching, might have seen a slight flush on his cheek as he told her of the stately woman, Wilford's mother, of the haughty Juno, a beauty and a belle, and lastly of Arabella, whom the family nicknamed Bluebell, from her excessive fondness for books, a fondness which made her affect a contempt for the fashionable life her mother and sister led.
It was very evident that neither of the young ladies were wholly to Morris' taste, but of the two he preferred the Bluebell, for though very imperious and self-willed, she really had some heart, some principle, while Juno had none. This was Morris' opinion, and it disturbed the little Katy, as was very perceptible from the nervous tapping of her foot upon the carpet and the working of her hands.
"How would I appear by the side of those ladies?" she suddenly asked, her countenance changing as Morris replied that it was almost impossible to think of her as associated with the Camerons, she was so wholly unlike them in every respect.
"I don't believe I shocked Wilford so very much," Katy rejoined, reproachfully, while again a heavy pain shot through Morris' heart, for he saw more and more how Wilford Cameron was mingled with every thought of the young girl, who continued: "And if he was satisfied, I guess his mother and sisters will be. Anyway, I don't want you to make me feel how different I am from them."
There were tears now on Katy's face, and casting aside all selfishness, Morris wound his arm around her, and smoothed her golden hair, just as he used to do when she was a child and came to him to be soothed. He said, very gently:
"My poor Kitty, you do like Wilford Cameron; tell me honestly—is it not so?"
"Yes, I guess I do," and Katy's voice was a half sob. "I could not help it, either, he was so kind, so—I don't know what, only I could not help doing what he bade me. Why, if he had said: 'Jump overboard, Katy Lennox,' I should have done it, I know—that is, if his eyes had been upon me, they controlled me so absolutely. Can you imagine what I mean?"
"Yes, I understand. There was the same look in Bell Cameron's eye, a kind of mesmeric influence which commanded obedience. They idolize this Wilford, and I dare say he is worthy of their idolatry. One thing, at least, is in his favor—the crippled Jamie, for whose opinion I would give more than all the rest, seemed to worship his Uncle Will, talking of him continually, and telling how kind he was, sometimes staying up all night to carry him in his arms when the pain in his back was more than usually severe. So there must be a good, kind heart in Wilford Cameron, and if my Cousin Kitty likes him, as she says she does, and he likes her as I believe he must, why, I hope—"
Morris Grant could not finish the sentence; for he did not hope that Wilford Cameron would win the gem he had so long coveted as his own.
He might give Kitty up because she loved another best. He was generous enough to do that, but if he did it, she must never know how much it cost him, and lest he should betray himself he could not to-night talk with her longer of Wilford Cameron, whom he believed to be his rival. It was time now for Katy to go home, but she did not seem to remember it until Morris suggested to her that her mother might be uneasy if she stayed away much longer, and so they went together across the fields, the shadow all gone from Katy's heart, but lying so dark and heavy around Morris Grant, who was glad when he could leave Katy at the farmhouse door and go back alone to the quiet library, where only God could witness the mighty struggle it was for him to say: "Thy will be done." And while he prayed, not that Katy should be his, but that he might have strength to bear it if she were destined for another, Katy, up in her humble bedroom, with her head nestled close to Helen's neck, was telling her of Wilford Cameron, who, when they went down the rapids and she had cried with fear, had put his arm around her, trying to quiet her, and who once again, on the mountain overlooking Lake George, had held her hand a moment, while he pointed out a splendid view seen through the opening trees. And Helen, listening, knew just as Morris Grant had done that Katy's heart was lost, and that for Wilford Cameron to deceive her now would be a cruel thing.
CHAPTER III.
WILFORD CAMERON.
The day succeeding Katy Lennox's return to Silverton was rainy and cold for the season, the storm extending as far westward as the city of New York, and making Wilford Cameron shiver as he stepped from the Hudson River cars into the carriage waiting for him, first greeting pleasantly the white-gloved driver, who, carefully closing the carriage door, mounted to his seat and drove his handsome bays in the direction of No. ——Fifth Avenue. And Wilford, leaning back among the yielding cushions, thought how pleasant it was to be going home again, feeling glad, as he frequently did, that the home to which he was going was in every particular unexceptionable. The Camerons he knew were an old and highly respectable family, while it was his mother's pride that, go back as far as one might on either side, there could not be found a single blemish or a member of whom to be ashamed. On the Cameron side there were millionaires, merchant princes, bankers and stockholders, professors and scholars, while on hers, the Rossiter side, there were LL.D.'s and D.D.'s, lawyers and clergymen, authors and artists, beauties and belles, the whole forming an illustrious line of ancestry,