His father once had abruptly asked him if there was any truth in the report that he was about to marry and make a fool of himself, and when Wilford had answered “No,” he had replied with a significant “Umph! Old enough, I should think, if you ever intend to marry. Wilford,” and the old man faced square about, “I know nothing of the girl, except what I gathered from your mother and sisters. You have not asked my advice. I don’t suppose you want it, but if you do, here it is. If you love the girl and she is respectable, marry her if she is poor as poverty and the daughter of a tinker; but if you don’t love her, and she’s as rich as a nabob, for thunder’s sake keep away from her.” This was the elder Cameron’s counsel, and Katy’s cause rose fifty per cent. in consequence. Still Wilford was sadly disquieted, so much so that his partner, Mark Ray, could not fail to observe that something was troubling him, and at last frankly asked what it was. Wilford knew he could trust Mark, and he confessed the whole, telling him far more of Silverton than he had told his mother, and then asking what his friend would do were the case his own. Fond of fun and frolic, Mark laughed immoderately at Wilford’s description of Aunt Betsy bringing her “herrin’ bone” patch-work into the parlor, and telling him it was a part of Katy’s “settin’ out,” but when it came to her hint for an invitation to visit New York, the amused young man roared with laughter, wishing so much that he might live to see the day when poor Aunt Betsy Barlow stood ringing for admittance at No.—— Fifth Avenue. “Wouldn’t it be rich, though, the meeting between your Aunt Betsy and Juno?” and the tears fairly poured down the young man’s face. But Wilford was too serious for trifling, and after his merriment had subsided, Mark talked with him candidly of Katy Lennox, whose cause he warmly espoused, telling Wilford that he was far too sensitive with regard to family and position. “You are a good fellow on the whole, but too outrageously proud,” he said. “Of course this Aunt Betsy in her _pongee_, whatever that may be, and the uncle in his shirt sleeves, and this mother whom you describe as weak and ambitious, are objections which you would rather should not exist; but if you love the girl, take her, family and all. Not that you are to transport the whole colony of Barlows to New York,” he added, as he saw Wilford’s look of horror, “but make up your mind to endure what cannot be helped, resting yourself upon the fact that your position is such as cannot well be affected by any marriage you might make, provided the wife were right.”