As thoughts of Genevra always made Wilford kinder toward his wife, so now he kissed her white cheek, noticing that, as Mark had said, it was whiter than last year in June. But mountain air would bring back the roses, he thought, as he handed her the note.
"Oh, yes, from Marian Hazelton," Katy said, glancing first at the name and then hastily reading it through.
"Who is Marian Hazelton? Some intimate friend, I judge, from the liberty she took."
"Not very intimate, though I liked her so much, and thought her above her position," Katy replied, repeating all she knew of Marian, and how she chanced to know her at all. "Don't you remember Helen wrote that she fainted at our wedding, and I was so sorry, fearing I might have overworked her."
Wilford did remember something about it, and satisfied that Marian Hazelton had no idea of intruding herself upon them, except as she might ask for work, he dismissed her from his mind and told Katy of his plan for taking her to the Mountain House a few weeks before going to Saratoga.
"Would you not like it?" he asked, as she continued silent, with her eyes fixed upon the window opposite.
"Yes," and Katy drew a long and weary breath. "I shall like any place where there are birds, and rocks, and trees, and real grass, such as grows of itself in the country; but Wilford," and Katy crept close to him now, "if I might go to Silverton, I should get strong so fast. You don't know how I long to see home once more. I dream about it nights and think about it days, knowing just how pleasant it is there, with the roses in bloom and the meadows so fresh and green. May I go, Wilford? May I go home to mother?"
Had Katy asked for half his fortune, just as she asked to go home, Wilford would have given it to her, but Silverton had a power to lock all the softer avenues of his heart, and so he answered that the Mountain House was preferable, that the rooms were engaged, and that as he should enjoy it so much better he thought they would make no change.
Katy did not cry, nor utter a word of remonstrance; she was fast learning that quiet submission was better than useless opposition, and so Silverton was again given up. But there was one consolation. Seeing Marian Hazelton would be almost as good as going home, for had she not recently come from that neighborhood, bringing with her the odor from the hills and freshness from the woods. Perhaps, too, she had lately seen Helen or Morris at church, and had heard the music of the organ which Helen played, and the singing of the children just as it sometimes came to Katy in her dreams, making her start in her sleep and murmur snatches of the sacred songs which Dr. Morris taught. Yes, Marian could tell her of all this, and very impatiently Katy waited for the morning when she would drive around to Fourth Street with the piles of sewing she was going to take to Marian.