ot now. Katy loved me
as her brother, nothing more, I am confident. Had she waited till she
was older, God only knows what might have been, but now she is gone and
our Father will help me to bear, will help us both, if we ask him, as we
must."

And then as only he could do, Morris talked with Helen until she felt
her hardness toward Wilford giving way, while she wondered how Morris
could speak thus kindly of one who was his rival.

"Not of myself could I do it," Morris said; "but I trust in One who
says: 'As thy day shall thy strength be,' and He, you know, never
fails."

There was a fresh bond of sympathy now between Morris and Helen, and the
latter needed no caution against repeating what she had discovered. The
secret was safe with her, and by dwelling on what "might have been" she
forgot to think so much of what was, and so the first days after Katy's
departure were more tolerable than she had thought it possible for them
to be. At the close of the fourth there came a short note from Katy, who
was still in Boston at the Revere, and perfectly happy, she said, going
into ecstasies over her husband, the best in the world, and certainty
the most generous and indulgent. "Such beautiful things as I am having
made," she wrote, "when I already had more than I needed, and so I told
him, but he only smiled a queer kind of smile as he said: 'Very true;
you do not need them.' I wonder then why he gets me more. Oh, I forgot
to tell you how much I liked his cousin, Mrs. Harvey, who boards at the
Revere, and whom Wilford consults about my dress. I am somewhat afraid
of her, too, she is so grand, but she pets me a great deal and laughs at
my speeches. Mr. Ray is here too, and I think him splendid.

"By the way, Helen, I heard him tell Wilford that you had one of the
best shaped heads he ever saw, and that he thought you decidedly good
looking. I must tell you now of the only thing which troubles me in the
least, and I shall get used to that, I suppose. It is so strange Wilford
never told me a word until she came, my waiting maid. Think of that!
little Katy Lennox with a waiting maid, who jabbers French half the
time, for she speaks that language as well as her own, having been
abroad with the family once before. That is why they sent her to me;
they knew her services would be invaluable in Paris. Her name is Esther,
and she came the day after we did and brought me such a beautiful
mantilla from Wilford's mother, and the lovelie