The furniture, too, which he sent on from New York, was perfect in its kind, and suitable in every respect and Helen enjoyed the settling very much, and when it was finished it was hard telling which was the more pleased, she or good Aunt Betsy, who, having confessed in a general kind of way at a sewing society, that she did go to a play-house, and was not so very sorry either, except as the example might do harm, had nothing to fear from New York, and was proportionably happy. At least she would have been if Morris had not seemed so _off_, as she expressed it, taking but little interest in the preparations and evincing no pleasure at Katy’s expected visit. He had been polite to Wilford, had kept him at Linwood, taking him to and from the depot, but even Wilford had thought him changed, telling Katy how very sober and grave he had become, rarely smiling, and not seeming to care to talk unless it were about his profession or on some religious topic. And Morris _was_ greatly changed. The wound which in most hearts would have healed by this time, had grown deeper with each succeeding year, while from all he heard he felt sure that Katy’s marriage was a sad mistake, wishing sometimes that he had spoken, and so perhaps have saved her from the life in which she could not be wholly free. “She would be happier with me,” he had said, with a sad smile to Helen, when she told him of some things which she had not mentioned elsewhere, and there were great tears in Morris’s eyes, when Helen spoke of Katy’s distress, and the look which came into her face when baby was taken away. Times there were when the silent Doctor, living alone at Linwood, felt that his grief was too great to bear. But the deep waters were always forded safely, and Morris’s faith in God prevailed, so that only a dull heavy pain remained, with the consciousness that it was no sin to remember Katy as she was remembered now. Oh how he longed to see her, and yet how he dreaded it, lest poor weak human flesh should prove inadequate to the sight. But she was coming home; Providence had ordered that and he accepted it, looking eagerly for the time, but repressing his eagerness, so that not even Helen suspected how impatient he was for the day of her return. Four weeks she had been at the Pequot House in New London, occupying a little cottage and luxuriating in the joy of having her child with her almost every day. Country air and country nursing had wrought wonders in the baby, which had grown so beautiful and bright that it was no longer in Wilford’s way save as it took too much of Katy’s time, and made her care less for the gay crowd at the hotel.