y 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--