They were not as happy in the new home as she had expected to be, but the fault did not lie with Katy. She performed well her part, and more, taking upon her young shoulders the whole of the burden which her husband should have helped her bear. Housekeeping far more than boarding brings out a husband's nature, for whereas in the latter case one rightfully demands the services for which he pays, in the former he is sometimes expected to do and think, and even wait upon himself. But this was not Wilford's nature. The easy, indolent life he had led so long as a petted son of a partial mother unfitted him for care, and he was as much a boarder in his own home as he had ever been in the hotels in Paris, thoughtlessly requiring of Katy more than he should have required, so that Bell was not far from right when in her journal she described her sister-in-law as "a little servant whose feet were never supposed to be tired, and whose wishes were never consulted." It is true Bell had put it rather strongly, but the spirit of what she said was right, Wilford seldom considering Katy, or allowing her wishes to interfere with his own plans, while accustomed to every possible attention from his mother, he exacted the same from his wife, whose life was not one of unmixed happiness, notwithstanding that every letter home bore assurance to the contrary. CHAPTER XVIII. MARIAN HAZELTON. The last days of June had come, and Wilford was beginning to make arrangements for removing Katy from the city before the warmer weather. To this he had been urged by Mark Ray's remarking that Katy was not looking as well as when he first saw her, one year ago, "She had grown thin and pale," he said. "Had Wilford remarked it?" Wilford had not. She complained much of headache; but that was only natural. Still he wrote to the Mountain House that afternoon to secure rooms for himself and wife, and then at an earlier hour than usual went home to tell her of the arrangement. Katy was out shopping, Esther said, and had not yet returned, adding: "There is a note for her upstairs, left by a woman who insisted on seeing the house, until I took her over it, showing her every room." "A strange woman went over my house in Mrs. Cameron's absence! Who was it?" Wilford asked, hastily, visions of Helen, or possibly Aunt Betsy, rising before his mind. "She said she was a friend of Mrs. Cameron, and that she knew she would allow the liberty," Esther replied, thus confirming Wilford in his suspicions that some country acquaintance had thrust herself upon them, and hastening up to Katy's room, where the note was lying, he took it up and examined the superscription, examined it closely, holding it up to the light full a minute, and forgetting to open it in his perplexity and the train of thought it awakened.