Katy had waited very anxiously for a letter from Wilford, and as the weeks went by and nothing came, a shadow had fallen upon her spirits and the family missed something from her ringing laugh and frolicsome ways, while she herself wondered at the change which had come over everything. Even the light household duties she used to enjoy so much, were irksome to her and she enjoyed nothing except going with Uncle Ephraim into the fields where she could sit alone while he worked nearby, or to ride with Morris as she sometimes did when he made his round of calls. She was not as good as she used to be, she thought, and with a view of making herself better she took to teaching in Morris and Helen’s Sunday-School, greatly to the distress of Aunt Betsy, who groaned bitterly when both her nieces adopted the “Episcopal quirks,” forsaking entirely the house where, Sunday after Sunday, her old-fashioned leghorn, with its faded ribbon of green was seen, bending down in the humble worship which God so much approves. But teaching in Sunday-school, taken by itself, could not make Katy better, and the old restlessness remained until the morning when, sitting on the grass beneath the apple-tree, she read that Wilford Cameron was coming; then everything was changed and Katy never forgot the brightness of that day when the robins sang so merrily above her head, and all nature seemed to sympathize with her joy. There was no shadow around her now, nothing but hopeful sunshine, and with a bounding step she sought out Helen to tell her the good news. Helen’s first remark, however, was a chill upon her spirits. “Wilford Cameron coming here? What will he think of us, we are so unlike him?” This was the first time Katy had seriously considered the difference between her surroundings and those of Wilford Cameron, or how it might affect him. But Aunt Betsy, who had never dreamed of anything like Wilford’s home, comforted her, telling her, “if he was any kind of a chap he wouldn’t be looking round, and if he did, who cared? She guessed they were as good as he, and as much thought of by the neighbors.” Wilford’s letter had been delayed so that the morrow was the day appointed for his coming, and never was there a busier afternoon at the farm-house than the one which followed the receipt of the letter. Everything not spotlessly clean before was made so now, Aunt Betsy, in her petticoat and short gown, going down upon her knees to scrub the back door-sill, as if the city guest were expected to notice that. On Aunt Hannah and Mrs. Lennox devolved the duty of preparing for the wants of the inner man, while Helen and Katy bent their energies to beautifying their home and making the most of their plain furniture.