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About Aunt Hannah there was so naturally ladylike, and Wilford saw it; but when it came to Aunt Betsy, of who there in such proh estate By way of pleasing the girls and doing honor to their "beau," as she called Wilford, Aunt Betsy had donned her very best attire, wearing the slate-colored pongee dress, bought twenty years before, and actually sporting a set of Helen's cast off hoops, which being quite too large for the di but the stylish appearance she intended
"Oh, auntie!" was Katy's involuntary exclamation, while Helen bit her lip with vexation, for the hoop had been an after thought to Aunt Betsy just before going in to dinner
But the good old lady never drea any one with her atte very low to Mr Cameron, she hoped for a better acquaintance, and then took her seat at the table, just where eachher so intently as scarcely to hear the reverent words hich Morris asked a blessing upon themselves and the food so abundantly prepared They could hardly have gotten through that first dinner without Morris, who adroitly tried to divert Wilford's ilance he could not prevent his hearing Aunt Betsy as, in an aside to Helen, she denounced the heavy fork she ardly trying to use, first expressing her surprise at finding it by her plate instead of the smaller one to which she was accustomed
"The land! if you didn't borry Morris' forks! I'd as soon eat with the toastin' iron," she said, in a tone of distress, but Helen's foot touching hers warned her to keep silence, which she did after that, and the dinner proceeded quietly, Wilford discovering ere its close that Mrs Lennox, now that she was more composed, had really some pretensions to a lady, while Helen's dress and collar ceased to be obnoxious, as he watched the play of her fine features and saw her eyes kindle as she took a modest part in the conversation when it turned on books and literature
Meanwhile Katy kept very still, her cheeks flushing and her eyes cast dohenever she aze; but when, after dinner was over and Morris had gone, she ith hiue was loosed, and Wilford found again the little fairy who had so bewitched him a feeeks before And yet there was a load upon his e that between Katy's faulf which never could be crossed by either party He ingly back to the hurined by the sudden appearing of some one of this old-bred fanorant they were, how far below him in the social scale? Poor Wilford! he winced and shivered when he thought of Aunt Betsy, in her antiquated pongee, and remembered that she was a near relative of the littlehis heart away in spite of fa him more deeply in love than ever It was very pleasant down by the pond, and Wilford, who liked staying there better than at the house, kept Katy with hi down and they heard in the distance the tinkle of a bell as the deacon's cows plodded slowly ho for them, and with his appetite sharpened by his walk, Wilford found no cause of coh he smiled mentally as he accepted the piece of apple pie Aunt Betsy offered hi by way of recommendation that "she made the crust but Catherine peeled and sliced the apples"