“It’s all accounted for now,” he said; “the piles of money that boy had abroad, his privacy with his mother, and all the other tomfoolery I could not understand. Katy,” and pausing in his walk, Mr. Cameron came close to his daughter-in-law, who was lying with her face upon the sofa. “Katy, be glad your baby died. Had it lived it might have proved a curse, just as mine have done—not all, for Bell, though fiery as a pepper-pod, has some heart, some sense—and there was Jack, my _oldest_ boy, a little fast it’s true, but when he died over the sea, I forgave all that, and forgot the chair he broke over a tutor’s head, and the scrapes for which I paid as high as a thousand at one time. He sowed his wild oats, and died before he could reap them—died a good man, I believe, and went to Heaven. Juno you know, and you can judge whether she is such as would delight a parent’s heart; while Wilford, my only boy, to deceive me so; I knew he was a fool in some things, but I did trust Wilford.” The old man’s voice shook now, and Katy felt his tears dropping on her hair as he stooped over her. Checking them, however, he said, “And he was cross because you found him out. Was there no other reason?” Katy thought of Dr. Morris, but she could not tell of that, and so she answered, “There was—but please don’t ask me now. I can’t tell, only I was not to blame. Believe me, father, I was not to blame.” “I’ll swear to that,” was the reply, and father Cameron commenced his walking again, just as Esther came to the door with the morning letters. There was one from Wilford for Katy, who nervously tore off the envelope and read as follows: