AFTER CHRISTMAS EVE.
Merrily rang the bells next day, the sexton deeming it his duty to send forth a merry peal in honor of the bride whose husband had remembered his boy so liberally. But Helen's heart was very sad as she met the smiling faces of her friends, and Mark had never been prayed for more earnestly than on that Christmas morning, when Helen knelt at the altar rail and received the sacred symbols of a Savior's dying love, asking that God would keep the soldier husband, hastening on to New York, and from thence to Washington. Much the Silvertonians discussed the wedding, nor were these discussions likely to be shortened by the arrival of Mattie Tubbs and Tom, who came by the express from New York, both surprised at what they heard, and both loud in their praises of Captain Ray, "the best and kindest man that ever lived," Tom said, while Mattie told fabulous stories of his wealth. Had Helen been the queen she could hardly have been stared at more curiously than she was that Christmas day, when late in the afternoon she drove through the town with Katy, the villagers looking admiringly after her, noting the tie of her bonnet, the arrangement of her face trimmings, and discovering in both a style and fitness they had never discovered before. As the wife of Mark Ray Helen became suddenly a heroine, in whose presence poor Katy subsided completely, nor was the interest at all diminished when two days later Mrs. Banker came to Silverton and was met at the depot by Helen, whom she hugged affectionately, calling her "my dear daughter," and holding her hand all the way to the covered sleigh waiting there for her. Further than that the curious ones could not follow, and so they did not know how on the road to the farmhouse Mrs. Banker expressed her approbation of what her boy had done, acknowledged her own unjust suspicions, asking pardon for them, and receiving it in the warm kiss Helen pressed upon her offered hand. Mrs. Banker was very fond of Helen, and not even the sight of the farmhouse, with its unpolished inmates, awakened a feeling of regret that her only son had not looked higher for a wife. She was satisfied with her new daughter, and insisted upon taking her back to New York.
"I am very lonely now, lonelier than you can possibly be," she said to Mrs. Lennox, "and you will not refuse her to me for a few weeks at least. It will do us both good, and make the time of Mark's absence so much shorter."
"Yes, mother, let Helen go. I will try to fill her place," Katy said, though while she said it her heart throbbed with pain and dread as she thought how desolate she should be without her sister.
But it was right, and Katy urged Helen's going, thinking how the tables were turned since the day when she had been the happy bride to whom good-bys were said, instead of the wounded, sore-hearted sister left behind, bearing up bravely so long as Helen was in sight, but shedding bitter tears when at last she was gone, tears which were only stayed by kind old Uncle Ephraim offering to take her to the little grave, where, from experience, he knew she always found rest and peace. The winter snows were on it now, but Katy, looking at it from the sleigh in which she sat, knew just where the daisies were, and the blue violets which with the spring would bloom again, feeling comforted as she thought of that eternal spring in the bright world above, where her child had gone. And so that night, when they gathered again around the fire in the pleasant little parlor, the mother and the old people did not miss Helen half so much as they should, for Katy sang her sweetest songs and wore her sunniest smile, while she told them of Helen's new home, and then talked of whatever else she thought would interest and please them.
"Little Sunbeam," Uncle Ephraim called her now, instead of "Katy-did," and in his prayer that first night of Helen's absence he asked, in his touching way, "that God would bless his little Sunbeam, and not let her grow tired of living there alone with folks so odd and old."
MARRIED—On Christmas Eve, at St. John's Church, Silverton, Mass., by Rev. Mr. Kelly, Captain MARK RAY, of the —th Regiment, N.Y.S.V., to Miss HELEN LENNOX, of Silverton.
Such was the announcement which appeared in several of the New York papers two days after Christmas, and such the announcement which Bell Cameron read at the breakfast table on the morning of the day when Mrs. Banker started for Silverton.
"Here is something which will perhaps interest you," she said, passing the paper to Juno who had come down late, and was looking cross and jaded from the effects of last night's dissipation.
Taking the paper from her sister's hand, Juno glanced carelessly at the paragraph indicated by Bell; then, as she caught Mark's name, she glanced again with a startled, incredulous look, her cheeks and lips turning white as she read that Mark Ray was lost to her forever, and that in spite of the stolen letter Helen Lennox was his wife.
"What is it, Juno?" Mrs. Cameron asked, noticing her daughter's agitation.
Juno told her what it was, handing her the paper and letting her read it for herself.
"Impossible! there is some mistake! How was it brought about?" she continued, darting a curious glance at Bell, whose face betrayed nothing as she leisurely sipped her coffee, and remarked: "I always thought it would come to this, for I knew he liked her. It is a splendid match."
Whatever Juno thought she kept it to herself, just as she kept her room the entire day, suffering from a racking headache, and ordering the curtains to be dropped, as the light hurt her eyes, she said to Bell, who, really pitying her now, never suggested that the darkened room was more to hide her tears than to save her eyes, and who sent away all callers with the message that Juno was sick—all but Sybil Grandon, who insisted so hard upon seeing her dear friend that she was admitted to Juno's room, talking at once of the wedding, and making every one of Juno's nerves quiver with pain as she descanted upon the splendid match it was for Helen, or indeed for any girl.
"I had given you to him," she said, "but I see I was mistaken. It was Helen he preferred, unless you jilted him, as perhaps you did."
Here was a temptation Juno could not resist, and she replied, haughtily:
"I am not one to boast of conquests, but ask Captain Ray himself if you wish to know why I did not marry him."
Sybil Grandon was not deceived, but she good-naturedly suffered that young lady to hope she was, and answered, laughingly: "I can't say I honor your judgment in refusing him, but you know best. However, I trust that will not prevent your friendly advances toward his bride. Mrs. Banker has gone after her, I understand, and I want you to call with me as soon as convenient. Mrs. Mark Ray will be the belle of the season, depend upon it," and gathering up her furs Mrs. Grandon kissed Juno affectionately and then swept from the room.
That Mrs. Cameron had hunted for and failed to find the stolen letter, and that she associated its disappearance with Mark Ray's sudden marriage, Bell was very sure, from the dark, anxious look upon her face when she came from her room, whither she had repaired immediately after breakfast, but whatever her suspicions were they did not find form in words. Mark was lost. It was too late to help that now, and as a politic woman of the world, Mrs. Cameron decided to let the matter rest, and by patronizing the young bride prove that she had never thought of Mark Ray for her son-in-law. Hence it was that the Cameron carriage and the Grandon carriage stood together before Mrs. Banker's door, while the ladies who had come in the carriages paid their respects to Mrs. Ray, rallying her upon the march she had stolen upon them, telling her how delighted they were to have her back again, and hoping they should see a great deal of each other during the coming winter.
"You know we are related," Juno said, holding Helen's hand a long time at parting, ostensibly to show how very friendly she felt, but really to examine and calculate the probable value of the superb diamond which shone on Helen's finger, Mark's first gift, left for her with his mother, who had presented it for him.
"As diamonds are now, that never cost less than four or five hundred dollars," Juno said, as she was discussing the matter with Bell, and telling her that Helen had the ring they had admired so much at Tiffany's the last time they were there, and then her spiteful, envious nature found vent in the remark: "I wonder at Mark's taste when only shoddy buy diamonds now."
"Why, then, did you torment father into buying that little pin for you the other day?" Bell asked, and Juno replied:
"I have always been accustomed to diamonds and that is a very different thing from Helen Lennox putting them on. Did you notice how red and fat her fingers were, and rough, too? Positively her hand felt like a nutmeg grater."
"You know the fable of the fox and the grapes," Bell said, her gray eyes flashing indignantly upon her sister, who, wisely forbore further remarks upon Helen's hands and contented herself with wondering if people generally would take up Mrs. Ray and honor her as they once did Katy.
"Of course they will," she said. "It's like heaps of them to do it," and in this conclusion she was not wrong, for those who had liked Helen Lennox did not find her less desirable now that she was Helen Ray, and numberless were the attentions bestowed upon her and the invitations she received.
But with few exceptions Helen declined the latter, feeling that, circumstanced as she was, with her husband in so much danger, it was better not to mingle much in gay society. She was very happy with Mrs. Banker, who petted and caressed and loved her almost as much as if she had been an own daughter. Mark's letters, too, which came nearly every day, were bright sun spots in her existence, so full were they of tender love and kind thoughtfulness for her. He was very happy, he wrote, in knowing that at home there was a dear little brown-haired wife, waiting and praying for him, and but for the separation from her was well content now with a soldier's life. Once when he was stationed for a longer time than usual at some point Helen thought seriously of going to him for a week or more, but the project was prevented by the sudden arrival in New York of Katy, who came one night to Mrs. Banker's, her face as white as ashes, and a strange, wild expression in her eyes as she said to Helen:
"I am going to Wilford. He is dying. He has sent for me. I ought to go on to-night, but cannot, my head aches so," and pressing both her hands upon her head Katy sank fainting into Helen's arms.