"No, Katy," Wilford answered, and by his voice Katy knew that she was wholly forgiven, crying on his neck in a plaintive, piteous way, while Wilford soothed and pitied and caressed, feeling subdued and humbled, and we must confess it, feeling too how very good and generous he was to be thus forbearing, when but for Katy's act of disobedience they might not now be childless!
* * * * * With a great gust of tears Bell Cameron bent over the little form, and then enfolded Katy in a more loving embrace than he had ever given her before; but whatever she might have said was prevented by the arrival of the coffin and the confusion which followed.
Much Wilford regretted that New York was so far away, for a city coffin was more suitable, he thought, for a child of his, than the one which Dr. Grant had ordered. But that was really of less consequence than the question where should the child be buried? A costly monument at Greenwood was in accordance with his ideas, but all things indicated a contemplated burial there in the country churchyard, and sorely perplexed he called on Bell as the only Cameron at hand, to know what he should do.
"Do just as Katy prefers," was Bell's reply, as she led him to the coffin and pointed to the name: "Little Genevra Cameron, aged nine months and twenty days."
"What is it, Wilford--what is the matter?" she asked, as her brother turned whiter than his child, and struck his hand upon his head as if a blow had fallen there.
Had "Genevra Lambert, aged twenty-two," met his eye, he could not have been more startled than he was; but soon rallying, he said to Morris, who came near: "The child was baptized then?"
"Yes, baptized Genevra. That was Katy's choice, I understand," Morris replied, and Wilford bowed his head, wishing the Genevra across the sea might know that his child bore her name.
"Perhaps she does," he thought, and his heart grew warm with the fancy that possibly in that other world, whose existence he never really doubted, the Genevra he had wronged would care for his child, if children there need care. "She will know it is mine at least," he said, and with a thoughtful face he went in quest of Katy, whom he found sobbing by the side of the mourning garments just sent in for her inspection.
Wilford was averse to black. It would not become Katy, he feared, and it would be an unanswerable reason for her remaining closely home for the entire winter.