Much which Bell had written of Katy was true. She had been in New York nearly four months, drinking deep draughts from the cup of folly and fashion held so constantly to her lips; but she cloyed of it at last, and what at first had been so eagerly grasped, began, from daily repetition, to grow insipid and dull. To be the belle of every place, to know that her dress, her style, and even the fashion of her hair was copied and admired, was gratifying to her, because she knew it pleased her husband, who was never happier or prouder than when, with Katy on his arm, he entered some crowded parlor and heard the buzz of admiration as it circled round, while Katy smiled and blushed like a little child, wondering at the attentions lavished upon her, and attributing them mostly to her husband, whose position she understood, marveling more and more that he should have chosen her to be his wife. That he had so honored her made her love him with a strange kind of grateful, clinging love, which as yet would acknowledge no fault in him, no wrong, no error; and if ever a shadow did cloud her heart she was the one to blame, not Wilford; he was right—he had idol she worshiped—he the one for whose sake she tried to drop her country ways and conform to the rules his mother and sister taught, submitting with the utmost good nature to what Bell called the _drill_, but never losing that natural, playful, airy manner which so charmed the city people and made her the reigning belle. As Marian Hazelton had predicted, others than her husband had spoken words of praise in Katy’s ear; but such was her nature that the shafts of flattery glanced aside, leaving her unharmed, so that her husband, though sometimes disquieted, had no cause for jealousy, enjoying Katy’s success far more than she did herself, urging her out when she would rather have stayed at home, and evincing so much annoyance if she ventured to remonstrate, that she gave it up at last and floated on with the tide.