The ceremony lasted but a few moments, and then the astonished audience pressed around the bride, offering their kindly congratulations, and proving to Mark Ray that the bride he had won was dear to others as well as to himself. Lovingly he drew her hand beneath his arm, fondly he looked down upon her as he led her back to her chair by the register, making her sit down while he tied on her cloak, and adjusted the fur about her neck.
“Handy and gentle as a woman,” was the verdict pronounced upon him by the female portion of the congregation, as they passed out into the street, talking of the ceremony, and contrasting Helen’s husband with the haughty Wilford, who was not a favorite with them.
It was Billy Brown who brought Mark’s cutter round, and held the reins, while Mark helped Helen in, and then he tucked the buffalo robes about her with the remark, “It’s all-fired cold, Miss Ray. Shall you play in church to-morrow?”
Assured that she would, Billy walked away, and Mark was alone with his bride, and slowly following the deacon’s sleigh, which reached the farm-house a long time before the little cutter, so that a fire was already kindled in the parlor when Helen arrived, and also in the kitchen stove, where the tea-kettle was boiling; for Aunt Betsy said “the chap should have some supper before he went back to York.”
Four hours he had to stay, and they were spent in talking of himself, of Wilford, and of Morris, and in planning Helen’s future. Of course she would spend a portion of her time at the farm-house, he said; but his mother had a claim upon her, and it was his wish that she should be in New York as much as possible.
Swiftly the last moments went by, and a “Merry Christmas” was said by one and another as they took their seats at the plentiful repast Aunt Betsy had provided, Mark feasting more on Helen’s face than on the viands spread before him. It was hard for him to leave her, hard for her to let him go; but the duty was imperative, and so when at last the frosty air grew keener as the small hours of night crept on, he stood with his arms about her, nor thought it unworthy of a soldier that his own tears mingled with hers, as he bade her good-bye, kissing her again and again, and calling her his precious wife, whose memory would make his camp life brighter, and shorten the days of absence. There was no one with them, when at last Mark’s horse dashed from the yard over the creaking snow, leaving Helen alone upon the doorstep, with the glittering stars shining above her head, and her husband’s farewell kiss wet upon her lips.
“When shall we meet again?” she sobbed, gazing up at the clear blue sky, as if to find the answer there.
But only the December wind sweeping down from the steep hillside, and blowing across her forehead, made reply to that questioning, as she waited till the last faint sound of Mark Ray’s bells died away in the distance, and then, shivering with cold, re-entered the farm-house.
CHAPTER XLII.
AFTER CHRISTMAS EVE.
Merrily rang the bells next day, 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 Saviour’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, and 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 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.