This time there was something comical in the eyes turned so mischievously upon Wilford, who colored scarlet for an instant, but soon recovered his composure, and invited Morris home with him to dinner. “I shall not take a refusal,” he said, as Morris began to decline. “Mother and the young ladies will be delighted to see you again. Mark will go with us, of course.” There was something so hearty in Wilford’s invitation that Morris did not again object, and two hours later found him in the drawing-room at No.—— Fifth Avenue, receiving the friendly greetings of Mrs. Cameron and her daughters, each of whom vied with the other in their polite attentions to him. Morris did not regret having accepted Wilford’s invitation to dinner, as by this means he saw the home which had well nigh been little Katy Lennox’s. She would be sadly out of place here with these people, he thought, and he looked upon all their formality and ceremony, and then contrasted it with what Katy had been accustomed to. Juno would kill her outright, was his next mental comment, as he watched that haughty young lady, dividing her coquetries between himself and Mr. Ray, who being every way desirable, both in point of family and wealth, was evidently her favorite. She had colored scarlet when first presented to Dr. Grant, and her voice had trembled as she took his offered hand, for she remembered the time when her liking had not been concealed, and was only withdrawn at the last because she found how useless it was to waste her affections upon one who did not prize them. When Wilford first returned from Silverton he had, as a sure means of forgetting Katy, told his mother and sister something of the farm-house and its inmates; and Juno, while ridiculing both Helen and Katy, had felt a fierce pang of jealousy in knowing they were cousins to Morris Grant, who lived so near that he could, if he liked, see them every day. In Paris Juno had suspected that somebody was standing between her and Dr. Grant, and with the quick insight of a smart, bright woman, she guessed that it was one of these cousins—Katy most likely, her brother having described Helen as very commonplace,—and for a time she had hated poor, innocent Katy most cordially for having come between her and the only man for whom she had ever really cared. Gradually, however, the feeling died away, but was revived again at sight of Morris Grant, and at the table she could not forbear saying to him, “By the way, Dr. Grant, why did you never tell us of those charming cousins, when you were in Paris? Brother Will describes one of them as a little water lily, she is so fair and pretty. Katy, I think, is her name. Wilford, isn’t it Katy Lennox whom you think so beautiful, and with whom you are more than half in love?” “Yes, it _is_ Katy,” and Wilford spoke sternly, for he did not like Juno’s bantering tone, but he could not stop her, and she went on, “Are they your own cousins, Dr. Grant?”