“Surely Miss Lennox might remain; the carriage could be sent back for her; and he had hardly seen her at all.” But Miss Lennox chose to go; and after her white cloak and hood had passed through the door into the street, there was nothing attractive for Mark in his crowded parlors, and he was glad when the last guest had departed, and he was left alone with his mother. Operas, parties, receptions, dinners, matinees, morning calls, drives, visits, and shopping; how fast one crowded upon the other, leaving scarcely an hour of leisure to the devotee of fashion who attended to them all. How astonished Helen was to find what _high life_ in New York implied, and she ceased to wonder that so many of the young girls grew haggard and old before their time, or that the dowagers grew selfish and hard and scheming. She should die outright, she thought, and she pitied poor little Katy, who, having once returned to the world, seemed destined to remain there, in spite of her entreaties and the excuses she made for declining the invitations which poured in so fast. “Baby was not well—Baby needed her,” was the plea with which she met Wilford’s arguments, until the mention of his child was sure to bring a scowl upon his face, and it became a question in Helen’s mind, whether he would not be happier if Baby had never come between him and his ambition. To hear Katy’s charms extolled, and know that he was envied the possession of so rare a gem, feeling all the while sure of her faith, was Wilford’s great delight, and it is not strange that, without any very strong fatherly feeling or principle of right in that respect, he should be irritated by the little life so constantly interfering with his pleasure and so surely undermining Katy’s health. For Katy did not improve, as Wilford hoped she might; and with his two hands he could span her slender waist, while the beautiful neck and shoulders were no longer worn uncovered, for Katy would not display her _bones_, whatever the fashion might be. In this dilemma Wilford sought his mother, and the result of that consultation brought a more satisfied look to his face than it had worn for many a day. “Strange he had never thought of it, when it was what so many people did,” he said to himself, as he hurried home. “It was the very best thing both for Katy and the child, and would obviate every difficulty.”