“Very pretty, but shockingly insipid,” is Juno’s verdict upon Mrs. Wilford, while mother says less, but looks a great deal more, especially when she talks about “my folks,” as she did to Mrs. Gen. Reynolds the first time she called. Mother and Juno were so annoyed, while Will looked like a thunder-cloud, when she spoke of Uncle Ephraim saying so and so. He was better satisfied with Katy in Europe, where he was not known, than he is here, where he sees her with other people’s eyes. One of his weaknesses is a too great reverence for the world’s opinion, as held and expounded by our very fashionable mother, and as in a quiet kind of way she has arrayed herself against poor Katy, while Juno is more open in her acts and sayings, I predict that it will not be many months before he comes to the conclusion that he has made a _mésalliance_, a thing of which no Cameron was ever guilty. I wonder if there is any truth in the rumor that Mrs. Gen. Reynolds once taught a district school, and if she did, how much would that detract from the merits of her son, Lieutenant Bob. But what nonsense to be writing about him. Let me go back to Katy, to whom Mrs. Gen. Reynolds took at once, laughing merrily at her _naïve_ speeches, as she called them—speeches which made Will turn black in the face, they betrayed so much of rustic life and breeding. I fancy that he has given Katy a few hints, and that she is beginning to be afraid of him, for she watches him constantly when she is talking, and she does not now slip her hand into his as she used to when guests are leaving and she stands at his side; neither is she so demonstrative when he comes up from the office at night, and there is a look upon her face which was not there when she came. They are “_toning_ her down,” mother and Juno, and to-morrow they are actually going to commence a systematic course of training preparatory to her début into society, said début to occur on the night of the ——, when Mrs. Gen. Reynolds gives the party talked about so long. I was present when they met in solemn conclave to talk it over, mother asking Will if he had any objections to Juno’s instructing his wife with regard to certain things of which she was ignorant. Will’s forehead knit itself together at first, and I half hoped he would veto the whole proceeding, but after a moment he replied, “No, provided Katy is willing. Her feelings must not be hurt.” “Certainly not,” mother said. “Katy is a dear little creature, and we all love her very much, but that does not blind us to her deficiencies, and as we are anxious that she should fill that place in society which Mrs. Wilford Cameron ought to fill, it seems necessary to tone her down a little before her first appearance at a party.”