move round from one
indifferent topic to another until he managed at last to stumble over
Smith Westcott's name.

"By the way," he would say, "poor Smith looks heartbroken. Absolutely
heart-broken. I didn't know the fellow cared so much for Katy. Didn't
think he had so much heart. So much faithfulness. But he looks down.
Very much downcast. Never saw a fellow look so chopfallen. And, by the
way, Albert did punish him awfully. He looks black and blue. Well, he
deserved it. He did so. I suppose he didn't mean to say anything against
Katy. But he had no business to let old friends coax him to drink.
Still, Albert was pretty severe. Too severe, in fact. I'm sorry for
Westcott. I am, indeed."

After some such talk as this, Cousin Isa would generally find Katy crying
before bed-time.

"What is the matter, Katy, dear?" she would say in a voice so full of
natural melody and genuine sympathy, that it never failed to move Katy to
the depths of her heart. Then Katy would cry more than ever, and fling
her arms about the neck of dear, dear, _dear_ Cousin Isa, and lavish on
her the tenderness of which her heart was full.

"O Cousin Isa! what must I do? I'm breaking poor Smith's heart. You don't
know how much he loves me, and I'm afraid something dreadful will happen
to him, you know. What shall I do?"

"I don't think he cares much, Katy. He's a bad man, I'm afraid, and
doesn't love you really. Don't think any more of him." For Isabel
couldn't find it in her heart to say to Katy just what she thought
of Westcott.

"Oh! but you don't know him," Katy cries. "You don't know him. He says
that he does naughty things sometimes, but then he's got such a tender
heart. He made me promise I wouldn't throw him over, as he called it, for
his faults. He said he'd come to be good if I'd only keep on loving him.
And I said I would. And I haven't. Here's more than a week now that he
hasn't been here, and I haven't been to the store. And he said he'd go to
sleep in the lake some night if I ever, ever proved false to him. And I
lie awake nearly all night thinking how hard and cruel I've been to him.
And oh!"--here Katy cried awhile--"and oh! I think such awful things
sometimes," she continued in a whisper broken by sobs. "You don't know,
Cousin Isa. I think how cold, how dreadful cold the lake must be! Oo-oo!"
And a shudder shook her frame. "If poor, dear Smith were to throw himself
in! What if he is there now?" And she looked up at Isa with sta