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."