ver sought in
vain he could do all things, and so he gave orders that the best chamber
should be prepared for his guest, bidding Mrs. Hull, his housekeeper,
see that no pains were spared for his entertainment, and then with Katy
he waited for the day, the last one in April, which should bring Wilford
Cameron a second time to Silverton.

CHAPTER VII.

WILFORD'S SECOND VISIT.

Wilford Cameron had tried to forget Katy Lennox, while his mother and
sisters had done their best to help to forget, or at least sicken of
her; and as the three, Juno, Bell and the mother, were very differently
constituted, they had widely different ways of assisting him in his
dilemma, the mother complimenting his good sense in drawing back from
an alliance which could only bring him mortification; Bell, the blue
sister, ignoring the idea of Wilford's marrying that country girl as
something too preposterous to be contemplated for a moment, much less to
be talked about; while Juno spared neither ridicule nor sarcasm, using
the former weapon so effectually that her brother at one time nearly
went over to the enemy; and Katy's tears, shed so often when no one
could see her, were not without a reason. Wilford was trying to forget
her, both for his sake and her own, for he foresaw that she could not
be happy with his family, and he came to think it might be a wrong to
her, transplanting her into a soil so wholly unlike that in which her
habits and affections had taken root.

His father once had abruptly asked him if there was any truth in the
report that he was about to marry and make a fool of himself, and when
Wilford had answered "No," he had replied with a significant:

"Umph! Old enough, I should think, if you ever intend to marry.
Wilford," and the old man faced square about: "I know nothing of the
girl, except what I gathered from your mother and sisters. You have not
asked my advice. I don't suppose you want it, but if you do, here it is.
If you love the girl and she is respectable, marry her if she is poor as
poverty and the daughter of a tinker; but if you don't love her, and
she's rich as a nabob, for thunder's sake keep away from her."

This was the elder Cameron's counsel, and Katy's cause arose fifty per
cent, in consequence. Still Wilford was sadly disquieted, so much so
that his partner, Mark Ray, could not fail to observe that something was
troubling him, and at last frankly asked what it was. Wilford knew he
could trust