help for it she contented herself as best she could with the
admiration she did receive, and whenever opportunity occurred, said
bitter things of Mrs. Wilford, whose parentage and low estate were
through her pretty generally known. But it did not matter there what
Katy had been; the people took her for what she was now, and Sybil's
glory faded like the early dawn in the coming of the full day.
As it had been at Saratoga, so it was at Newport. Urged on by Mrs.
Cameron and Bell, who greatly enjoyed her notoriety, Katy plunged into
the mad excitement of dancing and driving and coquetting, until Wilford
himself became uneasy, locking her once in her room, where she was
sleeping after dinner, and conveniently forgetting to release her until
after the departure at evening of some young men from Cambridge, whose
attentions to the Ocean House belle had been more strongly marked than
was altogether agreeable to him. Of course it was a mistake--the locking
of the door--and a great oversight in him not to have remembered it
sooner, he said to Katy, by way of apology; and Katy, with no suspicion
of the truth, laughed merrily at the joke, repeating it downstairs to
the old dowagers, who shrugged their shoulders meaningly and whispered
to each other that it might be well if more young, handsome wives were
locked into their rooms and thus kept out of mischief.
Though flattered, caressed and admired, Katy was not doing herself much
credit at Newport, but after Wilford there was no one to raise a warning
voice, until Mark Ray came down for a few days' respite from the heated
city, where he spent the entire summer, taking charge of the business
which belonged as much to Wilford as to himself. But Wilford had a wife;
it was more necessary that he should leave, Mark had argued; his time
would come by and by. And so he had remained at home until the last of
August, when he appeared suddenly at the Ocean House one night when
Katy, in her airy robes and childlike simplicity, was breaking hearts by
the score. Like others, Mark was charmed, and not a little proud, for
Katy's sake, to see her thus appreciated; but when one day's experience
had shown him more and given him a look behind the scenes, he trembled
for her, knowing how hard it would be for her to come out of that sea of
dissipation as pure and spotless as she went in.
"If I were her brother I would warn her that her present career, though
very delightful now, is not one upon whic
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