University of Virginia Library

19. CHAPTER XIX.
SARATOGA AND NEWPORT.

FOR three weeks Katy had been at the Mountain
House, growing stronger every day, until she
was much like the Katy of one year ago, But
their stay among the Catskills was ended, and on
the morrow they were going to Saratoga, where Mrs.
Cameron and her daughters were, and where, too, was
Sybil Grandon, the reigning belle of the United States.
So Bell had written to her brother, bidding him hasten
on with Katy, as she wished to see “that chit of a widow in
her proper place.” And Katy had been weak enough for
a moment to feel a throb of satisfaction in knowing how
effectually Sybil's claims to belle-ship would be put aside
when she was once in the field; even glancing at herself
in the mirror as she leaned on Wilford's shoulder,
and feeling glad that mountain air and mountain exercise
had brought the roses back to her white cheeks and the
brightness to her eyes. But Katy wept passionate tears
of repentance for that weakness, when an hour later she
read the letter which Dr. Grant had sent in answer
to one she had written from the Mountain House, confessing
her short-comings, and lamenting that the evils
and excesses which shocked her once did not startle her
now. To this letter Morris had replied as a brother
might write to an only sister, first expressing pleasure at
her happiness, and then reminding her of that other life
to which this is only a preparation, and beseeching her
so to use the good things of this world, given her in
such profusion, as not to lose the life eternal.

This was the substance of Morris's letter, which Katy
read with streaming eyes, forgetting Saratoga as Morris's
solemn words of warning and admonition rang in her
ears, and shuddering as she thought of losing the life
eternal, of going where Morris would never come, nor
any of those she loved the best, unless it were Wilford,
who might reproach her with having dragged him there
when she could have saved him.

“Keep yourself unspotted from the world,” Morris had
said, and she repeated it to herself, asking “how shall I
do that? how can one be good and fashionable too?”

Then laying her head upon the rock where she was sitting,
Katy tried to pray as she had not prayed in months,
asking that God would teach her what she ought to know,
and keep her unspotted from the world. But at the
Mountain House it is easier to pray that one be kept from
temptation than it is at Saratoga, which this summer was
crowded to overflowing, its streets presenting a fitting picture
of Vanity Fair, so full were they of show and gala
dress. At the United States, where Mrs. Cameron
stopped, two rooms, for which an enormous price was
paid, had been reserved for Mr. and Mrs. Wilford Cameron,
and this of itself would have given them a certain
éclat, even if there had not been present many who remembered
the proud, fastidious bachelor, and were proportionately
anxious to see his wife. She came, she saw,
she conquered; and within three days after her arrival
Katy Cameron was the acknowledged belle of Saratoga,
from the United States to the Clarendon. And Katy,
alas, was not quite the same as she who on the mountain
ridge had sat with Morris's letter in her hand, praying that
its teachings might not be forgotten. Saratoga seemed
different to her from New York, and she plunged into its
gaieties, never pausing, never tiring, and seldom giving
herself time to think, much less to pray, as Morris had
bidden her do. And Wilford, though hardly able to recognize
the usually timid Katy in the brilliant woman who
led rather than followed, was sure of her faith to him, and
so was only proud and gratified to see her bear off the
palm from every competitor, while Juno, though she
quarreled with the shadow into which she was so completely
thrown, enjoyed the éclat cast upon their party
by the presence of Mrs. Wilford, who had passed beyond
her criticism. Sybil Grandon, too, stood back in wonder
that a simple country girl should win and wear the laurels
she had so long claimed as her own; but as there was
no help for it she contented herself as best she could
with the admiration she did receive, and whenever opportunity
occurred, said bitter things of Mrs. Wilford,
whose parentage and low estate were through her pretty

generally known. But it did not matter there what
Katy had been; the people took her for what she was
now, and Sybil's glory faded like the early dawn in the
coming of the full day.

As it had been at Saratoga, so it was at Newport.
Urged on by Mrs. Cameron and Bell, who enjoyed her
notoriety, Katy plunged into the mad excitement of dancing
and driving and coqueting, until Wilford himself became
uneasy, locking her once in her room, where she was
sleeping after dinner, and conveniently forgetting to release
her until after the departure at evening of some
young men from Cambridge, whose attentions to the
Ocean House belle had been more strongly marked than
was altogether agreeable to him. Of course it was a
mistake—the locking of the door—and a great oversight
in him not to have remembered it sooner, he said to
Katy, by way of apology; and Katy, with no suspicion
of the truth, laughed merrily at the joke, repeating it
down stairs to the old dowagers, who shrugged their
shoulders meaningly and whispered to each other that it
might be well if more young wives were locked into their
rooms and thus kept out of mischief.

Though flattered, caressed, and admired, Katy was
not doing herself much credit at Newport; but save
Wilford there was no one to raise a warning voice, until
Mark Ray came down for a few days' respite from the
heated city, where he had spent the entire summer, taking
charge of the business which belonged as much to
Wilford as to himself. But Wilford had a wife; it was
more necessary that he should leave, Mark had argued;
his time would come by and by. And so he had remained
at home until the last of August, when he appeared suddenly
at the Ocean House one night when Katy, in her
airy robes and child-like simplicity, was breaking hearts
by the score. Like others, Mark was charmed, and not
a little proud for Katy's sake, to see her thus appreciated;
but when one day's experience had shown him more, and
given him a look behind the scenes, he trembled for her,
knowing how hard it would be for her to come out of
that sea of dissipation as pure and spotless as she
went in.

“If I were her brother I would warn her that her

present career, is not one upon which she will look back
with pleasure when the excitement is over,” he said to
himself; “but if Wilford is satisfied it is not for me to interfere.
It is surely nothing to me what Katy Cameron
does,” he kept repeating to himself; but as often as he
said it there came up before him a pale, anxious face,
shaded with Helen Lennox's bands of hair, and Helen
Lennox's voice whispered to him, “Save Katy, for my
sake;” and so next day, when Mark found himself alone
with Katy, while most of the guests were at the beach,
he questioned her of her life at Saratoga and Newport,
and gradually, as he talked, there crept into Katy's heart
a suspicion that he was not pleased with her account, or
with what he had seen of her since his arrival.

For a moment Katy was indignant, but when he said
to her kindly, “Would Helen be pleased?” her tears
started at once, and she attempted an excuse for her
weak folly, accusing Sybil Grandon as the first cause of
the ambition for which she hated herself.

“She had been held up as my pattern,” she said, half
bitterly, and forgetting to whom she was talking—“she,
the one whom I was to imitate; and when I found that I
could go beyond her, I yielded to the temptation, and
exulted to see how far she was left behind. Besides
that,” she continued, “is it no gratification, think you,
to let Wilford's proud mother and sister see the poor
country girl, whom ordinarily they would despise, stand
where they cannot come, and even dictate to them if she
chooses so to do? I know it is wrong—I know it is
wicked—but I like the excitement, and so long as I am
with these people I shall never be any better. Mark
Ray, you don't know what it is to be surrounded by a
set who care for nothing but fashion and display, and
how they may outdo each other. I hate New York
society. There is nothing there but husks.”

Katy's tears had ceased, and on her white face there
was a new look of womanhood, as if in that outburst
she had changed, and would never again be just what
she was before.

“Say,” she continued, “do you like New York society?”

“Not always—not wholly,” Mark answered; “and

still you misjudge it greatly, for all are not like the people
you describe. Your husband's family represent one
extreme, while there are others equally high in the social
scale who do not make fashion the rule of their lives,
—sensible, cultivated, intellectual people, of whose acquaintance
one might be glad—people whom I fancy
your sister Helen would enjoy. I have only met her
twice, but my impression is that she would not find New
York distasteful.”

Mark did not know why he had dragged Helen into
that conversation, unless it were that she seemed very
near to him as he talked with Katy, who replied,

“Yes, Helen finds good in all. She sees differently
from what I do, and I wish so much that she was here.”

“Why not send for her?” Mark asked, casting about
in his mind whether in case Helen came, he, too, could
tarry for a week and leave that business in Southbridge,
which he must attend to ere returning to the city.

It would be a study to watch Helen Lennox there at
Newport, and in imagination Mark was already her
sworn knight, shielding her from criticism, and commanding
for her respect from those who respected him,
when Katy tore his castle down by answering impulsively,

“I doubt if Wilford would let me send for her, nor
does it matter, as I shall not remain much longer. I do
not need her now, since you have shown me how foolish
I have been. I was angry at first, but now I thank
you for it, and so will Helen. I shall tell her when I
am in Silverton. I am going there from here, and oh,
I so wish it was to-day.”

The guests were beginning to return from the beach
by this time, and as Mark had said all he had intended
saying, he left Katy with Wilford, who had just come in
and joined a merry party of Bostonians only that day
arrived. That night at the Ocean House the guests
missed something from their festivities; the dance was
not so exhilarating or the small-talk between so lively,
while more than one white-kidded dandy swore mentally
at the innocent Wilford, whose wife declined to join
in the gaieties, and in a plain white muslin, with only a
pond lily in her hair, kept by her husband's side, notwithstanding

that he bade her leave him and accept
some of her numerous invitations to join the giddy dance.
This sober phase of Katy did not on the whole please
Wilford as much as her gayer ones had done. All he
had ever dreamed of the sensation his bride would create
was more than verified. Katy had fulfilled his highest
expectations, reaching a point from which, as she
had said to Mark, she could dictate to his mother, if she
chose, and he did not care to see her relinquish it.

But Katy remained true to herself. Dropping her
girlish playfulness, she assumed a quiet, gentle dignity,
which became her even better than her gayer mood had
done, making her ten times more popular and more
sought after, until she begged to go away, persuading
Wilford at last to name the day for their departure, and
then, never doubting for a moment that her destination
was Silverton, she wrote to Helen that she should be
home on such a day, and as they would come by way of
Providence and Worcester, they would probably reach
West Silverton at 10 o'clock, A M.

“Wilford,” she added, in a postscript, “has gone
down to bathe, and as the mail is just closing, I shall
send this letter without his seeing it. Of course it can
make no difference, for I have talked all summer of coming,
and he understands it.”