WHAT K A T Y DID. 
125 
mly letter, which ended with these words, “You 
have my life in your hands—to make it glad or mise¬ 
rable. I love you, and can be happy only if you re¬ 
turn my love. May I come to you, and will you 
welcome me? Oh remember, I pray you, how much 
depends on your reply, and be merciful!” 
And the Speedy answer was, only, “ I do not love 
—I cannot receive you.” 
With a smile, of triumph this was written, reader; 
and though a more thoroughly false declaration never 
issued from the will of a proud woman, still, when 
it was penned and sent, the more Kitty felt her re¬ 
spect and power of self-endurance rising rapidly ; 
life seemed to her then^as, after all, a pleasant bur¬ 
den, easy to be borne. Yes, she could live—live 
happily, too, alone with her dear old sire, free in 
heart and in fancy, fetterless as the winds—for the 
shadow of a shade of control Mr. Clover never 
thought of exercising over her. 
But was she really happy 7 wOiy, then, was she 
so fearful, so shy of cherishing old memories? And 
if she was not fearful, how happened it that she so 
carefully piled away her old music, every song, 
every tune she had used in the by-gone ? Why did 
she hide from sight, in the high, remote ^helves of 
the library, all those books from which Eugene once 
read to her and Lucy Freer? Why was theYchool- 
room, that pleasant chamber, so studiously shunned? 
Why was it , dear, wise reader ? 
During all the summer days the daughter spent 
much time in company with her sire ; and to please 
her, the old man began to be quite literary in his 
tastes; and with chess, and books, and gardening, 
the time went swiftly on to both. But a change had 
come over Kitty—and Mr. Clover had eyes to per¬ 
ceive it; but he rather rejoiced in it, and became 
more proud of her than ever. She was a child no 
longer—nor a lively, joyous girl, but a quiet, thought¬ 
ful woman, becoming every day more beautiful, 
more studious, and womanly. The ideaof going into 
the gay world had once made her almost wild with 
joy, but now the proposal which the father made, 
that they should pass the ensuing season in the me¬ 
tropolis with his relatives, was received with simple 
quiescence, and the preparations for a long sojourn 
from home made calmly and Soberly. The brain of 
the lovely heiress teemed with no brilliant anticipa¬ 
tions of conquest; and love and show—what could it 
mean ? 
The sickness which, for the first time in her life, 
prostrated Kitty, the very week previous to the in¬ 
tended departure, was not therefore attributable to 
great excitement, or to any like cause. It was a 
slow, nervous feVer, which, by degrees, wasted her 
strength away, and left her an infant in helplessness 
on her bed. The course of the disease could not be 
checked ; it brought her to the very door of death, 
and there/the angel stood, ready to break the slender 
thread of life, yet the destroying work, as if in mercy 
to the,father, was delayed. 
M/dich of the time of this sickness her mind had 
wandered sadly ; and he who watched incessantly 
Inside the girl, the adoring old man, had become 
=7 
cognizant of a secret which he "was not too proud to 
use. And so, one evening, just at twilight, he Stood 
with another—not the nurse, nor the physician—in 
the sick chamber. Kitty had seemed sinking all the 
day, and at nightfall the doctor had left her for a mo¬ 
ment, almost at his (professional) wit’s end. Then 
it was that Mr. Clover also had gone forth, and when 
he came again, Eugene Lind was with him. 
She was sleeping when they entered, and both of 
those strong men trembled when they stood together, 
looking silently upon her wasted, pallid face. Eugene 
sat down beside her, and when she awakened, reader, 
the father went softly from the room. 
Hush 1 I cannot tell you of that awaking from death 
to life 1 —from the as.sumdd indifference which had 
nearly chilled a young heart out of existence, to the 
life of low. No! and I will not tell it; but don’t 
you say it is because I am tired of talking that I pause, 
or that I feel inefficient to tell it all. It is not true. 
But, still later in the season, when the brown 
leaves were falling in every direction from the trees, 
when the clouds gathered often in the sky, and the 
frequent rains presaged cold winter storms, there 
stood, one of those intensely bright days yet vouch¬ 
safed October, a little lady, frail and young, leaning 
on the arm of a gentleman, in the beech grove, near 
Woodland Cottage. Cheerily fell the sunlight through 
the almost leafless branches, and numberless insects 
flitted to and fro—one of these, a tiny thing,- alighted 
on the maiden’s hand, not the one clasped in his! 
They had paused in their walk to rest, and neither had 
for many moments spoken; but as they began, as by 
mutual consent, to retrace their steps, the gentleman 
looked up into the blue sky, exclaiming fervently, 
“How beautiful it is to-day!” and with a heart 
full of thankfulness, he murmured fondly a name 
—a name with which the reader is familiar. Then 
he looked upon her , and he seemed to find all of 
heaven reflected in her eyes—and more beautiful 
than the sky or the sunshine seemed she to him ; he 
bent his stately form, he kissed her; and, reader, 
her arms wound round him in a moment, she re¬ 
turned his embracing. It was a marriage-covenant 
—nothing more or less ! 
“ Ha! then the insect flitted away, far, far up above 
the happy mortals, with a cry heard never before, 
and the grove became vocal with it; how crimson 
grew the girl’s pale face, as she heard that strange, 
bold voice, proclaiming to the winds, “ Katy did!' 1 ' 1 
Over the ocean flew a message-Mhus it run : 
“ She is mine, Lucy ! this brave, proud, generous 
little Kitty, is mine ! And because sbe is given to 
me in this eleventh hour, I feel that she is a £ gift of 
God,’—a gift unspeakably precious. My heart is 
fall of £ thanksgiving and the voice of melody,’ for 
we are one now—one forever—in life and in death, 
one. I shudder when I think how she has twice 
been nearly lost to me—once by her own lofty pride, 
and again by the Angel of Death, who seemed a 
terror-king when he hovered beside her. She is so 
