The Cameron pride; or, purified by suffering : $b A novelHolmes, Mary Jane
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The Cameron pride; or, purified by suffering : $b A novel
Holmes, Mary Jane
American fiction -- 19th century
“Who is Marian Hazelton?” Wilford asked himself as he threw down the
missive. “Some of Katy’s country friends, I dare say. Seems to me I have
heard that name. She certainly writes as Genevra did, except that this
Hazelton’s is more decided and firm. Poor Genevra!”
There was a pallor about Wilford’s lips as he said this, and taking up
the picture he gazed for a long time upon the handsome, girlish face,
whose dark eyes seemed to look reproachfully upon him, just as they must
have looked when the words were penned, “God will never forgive the
wrong you have done to me.”
“Genevra was mistaken,” he said. “At least if God has not forgiven, he
has prospered me, which amounts to the same thing;” and without a single
throb of gratitude to Him who had thus prospered him, Wilford laid
Genevra’s picture and Genevra’s note back with the withered grass and
flowers plucked from Genevra’s grave, just as Katy’s ring was heard and
Katy herself came in.
As thoughts of Genevra always made Wilford kinder towards his wife, so
now he kissed her white cheek, noticing that, as Mark had said, it was
whiter than last year in June. But mountain air would bring back the
roses, he thought, as he handed her the note.
“Oh, yes, from Marian Hazelton,” Katy said, glancing first at the name
and then hastily reading it through.
“Who is Marian Hazelton?” Wilford asked, and Katy replied by repeating
all she knew of Marian, and how she chanced to know her at all. “Don’t
you remember Helen wrote that she fainted at our wedding, and I was so
sorry, fearing I might have overworked her?”
Wilford did remember something about it, and then dismissing Marian from
his mind, he told Katy of his plan for taking her to the Mountain House
a few weeks before going to Saratoga.
“Would you not like it?” he asked, as she continued silent, with her
eyes fixed upon the window opposite.
“Yes,” and Katy drew a long and weary breath. “I shall like any place
where there are birds, and rocks, and trees, and real grass, such as
grows of itself in the country; but Wilford,” and Katy crept close to
him now, “if I might go to Silverton, I should get strong so fast! You
don’t know how I long to see home once more. I dream about it nights and
think about it days, knowing just how pleasant it is there, with the
roses in bloom and the meadows so fresh and green. May I go, Wilford?
May I go home to mother?”
Had Katy asked for half his fortune, just as she asked to go home,
Wilford would have given it to her; but Silverton had a power to lock
all the softer avenues of his heart, and so he answered that the
Mountain House was preferable, that the rooms were engaged, and that as
he should enjoy it so much better he thought they would make no change.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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