Captain Mark Ray was a prisoner of war, with several of his own company. An inmate of Libby Prison and a sharer from choice of the apartment where his men were confined. As an officer, he was entitled to better quarters than the filthy pen where the poor privates were, but Mark Ray had a large, warm heart, and he would not desert those who had been so faithful to him, and so he took their fare, and by his genial humor and unwavering cheerfulness kept many a heart from fainting and made the prisoners' life more bearable than it could have been without him. To young Tom Tubbs, who had enlisted six months before, he was a ministering angel, and many times the poor, homesick boy crept to the side of his captain, and laying his burning head in his lap, wept himself to sleep and dreamed he was at home again. The horrors of that prison life have never been told, but Mark bore up manfully, suffering less in mind, perhaps, than did the friends at home, who lived, as it were, a thousand years in that one brief summer while he languished in that horrid den whose very name had a power to send a thrill of fear to every heart.

At last, as the frosty days of October came on, they began to hope he might be exchanged, and Helen's face grew bright again, until one day there came a soiled, half-worn letter, in Mark's own handwriting. It was the first word received from him since his capture in July, and with a cry of joy Helen snatched it from Uncle Ephraim, for she was still at the farmhouse, and sitting down upon the doorstep just where she had been standing, read the words which Mark had sent to her. He said nothing of the treatment he received, for he wanted the letter to reach her, and he knew well that if he complained the chances were small for the missive ever to leave the capital of the "chivalry." He was very well, he said, and had been all the time, but he pined for home, longing for the dear girl-wife never so dear as now, when separated by so many miles, with prison walls on every side, and an enemy's line between them.

"But be of good cheer, darling," he wrote. "I shall come back to you some time, and life will he all the brighter for what you suffer now. I am so glad my darling consented to be my wife, even though I could stay with her but a moment. The knowing you are really mine makes me happy even here, for I think of you by day, and in my dreams I always hold you in my arms and press you to my heart."

Far different from this cheerful letter was the one which Tom inclosed in it for his family—a wild, homesick outburst, containing so much of truth that it was strange it was ever permitted to leave the city. Of this letter Helen heard by way of Mattie Tubbs, and hope died within her, especially as Tom spoke of their being sent further South as a probable event.

"If Mark goes I shall never see him again," Helen said, despairingly; and when at last the message came that Mark had been removed, and that, too, just at the time when an exchange was constantly expected, she gave him up as lost, feeling almost as much widowed as Katy in her weeds.

Slowly the winter passed away, and the country was rife with stories of the inhuman treatment of our men, daily dying by hundreds, while those who survived the cruelties were reduced to maniacs and imbeciles. And Helen, as she listened, grew nearly frantic with the sickening suspense. She did not know now where her husband was. He had made several attempts to escape, and with each failure had been removed to safer quarters, so that the chances now of his being exchanged seemed very far away. Week after week, month after month, passed on, until came the memorable battle of the Wilderness, when Lieutenant Bob, as yet unharmed, stood bravely in the thickest of the fight, his tall figure towering above the rest, and his soldier's uniform buttoned over a dark tress of hair, and a face like Bell Cameron's, Lieutenant Bob had taken two or three furloughs, but the one which had left the sweetest, pleasantest memory in his heart was that of the autumn before, when the crimson leaves of the maple and the golden tints of the beech were burning themselves out on the hills of Silverton, where his furlough was mostly passed, and where, with Bell Cameron, he scoured the length and breadth of Uncle Ephraim's farm, now stopping by the shore of Fairy Pond and again sitting for hours on a ledge of rocks far up the hill, where, beneath the softly-whispering pines nodding above their heads, Bell gathered the light brown cones, and said to him the words he had so thirsted to hear:

"I love you, Robert Reynolds."

Much of Bell's time was passed with Katy at the farmhouse, and here Lieutenant Reynolds found her, accepting readily of Uncle Ephraim's hearty invitation to remain; and spending his entire vacation there, with the exception of three days given to his family. Perfectly charmed with quaint Aunt Betsy, whom he remembered so well, he flattered and courted her almost as much as he did Bell, but did not take her with him in his long rambles over the hills, or sit with her at night alone in the parlor until the clock struck twelve—a habit which Aunt Betsy greatly disapproved, but overlooked for this once, seeing, as she said, that:

"The young leftenant was none of her kin, and Isabel only a little."

Those were halcyon days which Robert passed at Silverton, but one stood out prominently before him, whether sitting by his camp-fire or plunging into the battle, and that the one when, casting aside all pride and foolish theories, Bell Cameron freely acknowledged her love for the man to whom she had been so long engaged, and paid him back the kisses she had before refused to give.

"I shall be a better soldier for this," Robert had said, as he guided her down the steep of rocks, and with her hand in his, walked slowly back to the farmhouse, which, on the morrow, he left to take again his place in the army.

There were no more furloughs for him after that, and the winter passed away, bringing the spring again, when came that battle in the Wilderness, and like a hero he fought until, becoming separated from his comrades, he fell into the enemy's hands, and two days after there sped along the telegraphic wires to New York:

"Lieutenant Robert Reynolds captured the first day of the battle."

Afterward there came news that Andersonville was his destination, together with many others made prisoners that day.

"It is better than being shot, and a great deal better than being burned, as some of the poor wretches were," Juno said, trying to comfort Bell, who doubted a little her sister's word.

True, there was now the shadow of a hope that he might survive the horrors, the mere recital of which made the strongest heart shiver with dread; but the probabilities were all against it, and Bell's face grew almost as white as Helen's, while her eyes acquired that restless, watchful, anxious look which has crept into the eyes of so many sorrowing women, looking away to the southward, where the dear ones were languishing in the filthy rebel holes, unworthy the name of prison.



CHAPTER LI.

DR. GRANT.

Morris had served out his time as surgeon in the army, had added to it an extra six months, and by his humanity, his skill and Christian kindness, made for himself a name which would be long remembered by the living to whom he had ministered so carefully, while many a dying soldier had blessed him for pointing out the way which leadeth to the life everlasting, and in many a mourning family his name was a household word for the good he had done to a dying son and brother. But Morris' hospital work was over. He had gone a little too far, incurring too much risk, until his own strength had failed from long-continued toil, and now in the month of June, when Linwood was bright with the early summer blossoms, he was coming back, with health greatly impaired and a dark cloud before his vision, so that he could not see how beautiful his home was looking, or gaze into the faces of those who waited so anxiously to welcome again their beloved physician. Blind, some said he was, but the few lines sent to Helen announcing the day of his arrival contradicted that report. His eyes were very much diseased, his amanuensis wrote, but he trusted that the pure air of his native hills and the influence of old scenes and associations would soon effect a cure. If not too much trouble, he added, please see that the house is made comfortable, and have John meet me on Friday at the station.

Helen had just returned from New York, where she could not remain any longer, for the scenes of gayety in which she was sometimes compelled to mingle were utterly distasteful to her, and she longed for the seclusion of the farmhouse and the quiet there is among the hills. She was glad Morris was coming home, for he always did her good; he could comfort her better than any other, unless it were Katy, whose loving, gentle words of hope were very soothing to her.

"Poor Morris!" she sighed, as she finished his letter, and then took it to the family sitting upon the pleasant piazza, which, at Katy's expense and her own, had been added to the house, overlooking Fairy Pond and the pleasant hills beyond.

"Morris is coming home," she said, as Aunt Betsy asked: "What news?" "He will be here on Friday, and he wishes us to see that all things are in order at Linwood for his reception. His eyes are badly diseased, but he is not blind, and he hopes that coming back to us will cure him," she added, glancing aside at Katy, who sat upon a step of the piazza, her hands folded together upon her lap and her blue eyes looking far off into the fading sunset, just as Evangeline sits looking down the Mississippi River.

When she heard Morris' name she turned her head a little, so that the ripple of her golden hair was more distinctly visible beneath the silken net she wore, and a deep tinge of red dyed her cheeks; but she made no comment or showed by any sign that she heard what they were saying. Katy was very lovely and consistent in her young widowhood, and not a whisper of gossip had the Silvertonians coupled with her name since she came to them, leaving her husband in Greenwood. There had been no parading of her grief before the public or assumption of greater sorrow than many others had known; but the soberness of her demeanor, and the calm, subdued expression of her face, attested to what she had suffered. Sixteen months had passed since Wilford died, and she still wore her deep mourning weeds, except the widow's cap, which, at her mother's and Aunt Betsy's earnest solicitations, she had laid aside, substituting in its place a simple net, which confined her waving hair and kept it from breaking out in flowing curls, as it was disposed to do. Against this fashion Aunt Betsy also inveighed.

"Couldn't a body curl their hair when nater intended it to curl, and mourn a-plenty, too?" For her part, she believed it people's duty to look as well as they could, mournin' or not mournin', and Katy couldn't look much wus' than she did, with her hair shoved back under that net, unless it was when she wore that heathenish cap, which made her look so like a grandmother.

This was Aunt Betsy's opinion, but to others there was something singularly sweet and beautiful in the childish face, from which the golden hair was brushed back so plainly, waving softly about the forehead, and occasionally escaping from its confinement in a graceful curl, which Katy suffered to remain for Aunt Betsy's sake. Katy had never been prettier than she was now, in her mature womanhood, and to the poor and sorrowful, whose homes she cheered so often, she was an angel of goodness.

Truly she had been purified by suffering; the dross had been burned out, and only the gold remained, shedding its brightness on all with which it came in contact.

They would miss her at the farmhouse now far more than they did when she first went away, for she made the sunshine of their home, filling Helen's place when she was in New York, and when she came back proving to her a stay and comforter. Indeed, but for Katy's presence, Helen often felt that she could not endure the sickening suspense and doubt which hung so darkly over her husband's fate.

"He is alive; he will come back," Katy always said, and from her perfect faith, Helen, too, caught a glimpse of hope.

Could they have forgotten Mark they would have been happy at the farmhouse now, for with the budding spring and blossoming summer, Katy's spirits had returned, and her old, musical laugh rang often through the house just as it used to do in the happy days of girlhood, while the same silvery voice which led the chair in the brick church, and sang with the little children their Sunday hymns, often broke forth into snatches of songs, which made even the robins listen, as they built their nests in the trees; while Uncle Ephraim, far from condemning this lightness of spirits, thanked God, who had brought his darling safely through the cloud to where the sun was shining.

If Katy thought of Morris she never spoke of him when she could help it. It was a morbid fancy to which she clung; that duty to Wilford's memory required her to forget, or, at least, avoid the man who had so innocently come between them; and when she heard he was coming home she felt more pain than sorrow. She liked going up to Linwood, as she often did. Its quiet seclusion, and the beauty of its grounds suited her taste, and she often passed hours in the pleasant summer house, or on the broad piazza, dreaming sometimes of the past, and sometimes, it must be confessed, dreaming of a future, and wondering what it would bring her when Mark came back, as come he would, and Helen was gone for good. She would be very lonely with people so much older than herself, and who did not understand the different tastes and ways of thinking which she had acquired. She was very happy at the farmhouse, it is true, and loved its inmates with a deep, unselfish love, but Helen's frequent absences from home showed her that even the farmhouse could be dreary with no congenial spirit to sympathize with her as Helen did.

Matters were in this state when news came of Morris' intended return, and Katy, sitting on the piazza step, and gazing dreamily into the crimson clouds piled against the western sky, seemed not to hear what her sister was saying. She did hear, however, and the blood leaped more swiftly through her veins for a moment, as she thought of Morris at Linwood just as he used to be. But when she remembered Wilford's words, "He confessed to me that he loved you," she felt only a nervous dread of Morris' coming, and forthwith set to work to fortify herself at every point with a stricture of reserve which she was far from feeling.

The day of his return was balmy and beautiful as the days of June are apt to be, and at an early hour Helen went over to Linwood to see that everything was in order for his arrival.

"Mrs. Hull will have dinner waiting for him, and I shall stay," she said to Katy, adding: "I wish you would come over, too. Morris will feel grateful, I know."

Katy did not reply, but struck softly the chords of the piano and thought how foolish she was to feel as she did. Suppose Morris had loved her once, he probably did not now, and even if he did, it could do no good, for she was the same as dead to all that kind of thing. She had tried matrimony, and found it—she did not say what. She never allowed herself to think an unkind thing of Wilford if she could help it, but a tear dropped upon the piano keys as she unconsciously hummed a part of the song commencing "I would not, no, I would not, recall the past again, for mingled with the pleasure was too much grief and pain."

Katy's tears were falling fast by the time the song was ended, but she dashed them away and sprang from the stool, exclaiming:

"Crying because Morris is coming home, poor, worn-out, half-blind Morris, who has done so much for the soldiers, I will go up and welcome him. I will not be so silly as to imagine he still retains a fancy for an old woman of twenty-three, even if he had one for the girl of seventeen."

Katy felt very old just then, and walking to the glass, was almost vexed at the smooth, round face which met her view.

"I ought to look older at twenty-three," she said. "Morris will think I have not mourned a bit, nor cared for Wilford," and another tear glistened on her eyelashes as she thought of being accused of forgetfulness of the dead.

Katy did look very young for twenty-three. Her health was perfect now, and save as the change in her character showed itself upon her face, she had scarcely changed at all since the day when she came home from Canandaigua with her heart and head so full of him who now lay sleeping in Greenwood.

"I know what's the matter. It's the net," she said, frowning disapprovingly upon the silken meshes which confined her hair. "Yes, it's nothing but this net which makes me look so young. Every schoolgirl wears one, and I have followed the fashion, letting it hang down my back in a way very unbecoming to a widow of my age. I'll take it off, or at all events I won't wear it to Linwood," and tossing aside the offending net, Katy bound her luxuriant hair in bands which she coiled around the back of her head and then put on the widow's cap, discarded so many months, and from which she shrank a little as she surveyed herself in the glass.

It was not exactly unbecoming; nothing could be unbecoming to that fair, open face, which, surrounded by the white border, looked much like a sweet baby's face, except that it was older; but it was now so long since Katy had seen anything of the kind, and as habit is everything, she was not quite as well pleased with her headgear as in New York, where such things were common. Nevertheless, she would wear it to Linwood, and she went for her round straw hat, but, alas, the sun hat which made her look so frightfully young was not made for the widow's cap, and casting it aside, Katy threw a thick black veil over her head, and then stepping to the door of the room where her mother and Aunt Betsy were busy at work, she said:

"I am going to Linwood, and shall stay there to dinner."

"In the name of the people, what has the child rigged herself out in that shape for?" Aunt Betsy exclaimed, letting fall the knife with which she was chopping cheese curd, and staring in astonishment. "I'd enough sight rather you'd frizzle your hair over rats, as Helen does, making herself look like some horned critter, than wear that heathenish thing. Why do you do it, Catherine?"

Catherine could not tell her, and laughing merrily at her aunt's animadversions against her own and Helen's style of hairdressing, she hurried away across the fields to Linwood. Aunt Betsy's surprise was in a measure shared by Helen, who, understanding Katy better, made no comments on her appearance, but smiled quietly at the air of matronly dignity which Katy had assumed, and which really sat so prettily upon her as she went from room to room to see what had been done, lingering longest in Morris' own apartment, opening from the library, where she made some alterations in the arrangement of the furniture, putting one chair a little more to the right, and pushing a stand or table to the left, just as her artistic eye dictated. By some oversight, no flowers had been put in there, but Katy gathered an exquisite bouquet and left it on the mantel, just where she remembered to have seen flowers when Morris was at home.

"He will he tired," she said. "He will lie down after dinner," and she laid a few sweet English violets upon the pillow, thinking their perfume might be grateful to him after the pent-up air of the hospital and cars. "He will think Helen put them there, or Mrs. Hull," she thought, as she stole softly out and shut the door behind her, glancing next at the clock, and feeling a little impatient that a whole hour must elapse before they could expect him.

Poor Morris! he did not dream how anxiously he was waited for at home, nor yet of the crowd assembled at the depot to welcome back the loved physician, whom they had missed so much, and whose name they had so often heard coupled with praise as a true hero, even though his post was not in the front of the battle. Thousands had been cared for by him, their gaping wounds dressed skillfully, their aching heads soothed tenderly, and their last moments made happier by the words he spoke to them of the world to which they were going, where there is no more war or shedding of man's blood. In the churchyard at Silverton there were three soldiers' graves, whose pale occupants had each died with Dr. Grant's hand held tightly in his, as if afraid that he would leave them before the dark river was crossed, while in more than one Silverton home there was a wasted form on which the soldier coat hung loosely, who never tired of telling Dr. Morris' praise and dwelling on his goodness. But Dr. Morris was not thinking of this as, faint and sick, with the green shade before his eyes, he leaned against the pile of shawls his companion had placed for his back and wondered if they were almost there.

"I smell the pond lilies; we must he near Silverton," he said, and a sigh escaped his lips as he thought of coming home and not being able to see it or the woods and fields around it. "Thy will be done," he had said many times since the fear first crept into his heart that for him the light had faded.

But now, when home was almost reached, and he began to breathe the air from the New England hills and the perfume of the New England lilies, the flesh rebelled again, and he cried out within himself: "Oh, I cannot be blind! God will not deal thus by me!" while keen as the cut of a sharpened knife was the pang with which he thought of Katy, and wondered would she care if he were blind.

Just then the long train stopped at Silverton, and, led by his attendant, he stepped feebly into the crowd, which sent up deafening cheers for Dr. Grant come home again. At the sight of his helplessness, however, a feeling of awe fell upon them, and whispering to each other, "I did not suppose he was so bad," they pressed around him, offering their hands and inquiring anxiously how he was.

"I have been sick, but I shall get better now. The very sound of your friendly voices does me good, even though I cannot see you distinctly," he said, as he went slowly to his carriage, led now by Uncle Ephraim, who could not keep back his tears as he saw how weak Morris was, panting for breath as he leaned back among the cushions.

It was very pleasant that afternoon, and Morris enjoyed the drive so much, assuring Uncle Ephraim that he was growing better every moment. He did seem stronger when at last the carriage stopped at Linwood, and his step was more rapid as he went up the steps where Helen, Katy and Mrs. Hull were waiting for him. He could not see them sufficiently to distinguish one from the other, but even without the aid of her voice he would have known when Katy's hand was put in his, it was so small, so soft, and trembled so as he held it. Her cap had been worn for nothing, nor did she think of it in her sorrow at finding him so helpless. Pity was the strongest feeling of which she was conscious, and it manifested itself in various ways.

"Let me lead you, Cousin Morris," she said, as she saw him groping his way to his room, and without waiting for his reply, she held his hand again in hers and led him to his room, where the sweet English violets were.

"I used to lead you, Katy," Morris said, as he took his seat by the window, "and I little thought then that you would one day return the compliment. It is very hard to be blind."

The tone of his voice was inexpressibly sad, but his smile was as cheerful as ever as his face turned toward Katy, who could not answer for her tears. It seemed so terrible to see a strong man so stricken, and that strong man Morris—terrible to watch him in his helplessness, trying to appear as of old, so as to cast on others no part of the shadow resting so darkly on himself. When dinner was over and the sun began to decline, many of his former friends came in, but he looked so pale and weary that they did not tarry long, and when the last one was gone, Morris was led back to his room, which he did not leave again until the summer was over and the luscious fruits of September were ripening upon the trees.

Toward the middle of July, Helen, whose health was suffering from her restless anxiety concerning Mark, was taken by Mrs. Banker to Nahant, where Mark's sister, Mrs. Ernst, was spending the summer, and thus on Katy alone fell the duty of paying to Morris those little acts of sisterly attentions such as no other member of the family knew how to pay. In the room where he lay so helpless Katy was not afraid of him, nor did she deem herself faithless to Wilford's memory, because each day found her at Linwood, sometimes bathing Morris' inflamed eyes, sometimes bringing him the cooling drink, and again reading to him by the hour, until, soothed by the music of her voice, he would fall away to sleep and dream it was an angel there with him.

"My eyes are getting better," he said to her one day toward the latter part of August, when she came as usual to his room. "I knew last night that Mrs. Hull's dress was blue, and I saw the sun shine through the shutters. Soon, very soon, I hope to see you, Katy, and know if you have changed."

She was standing close by him, and as he talked he raised his hand as if to rest it on her head, but, with a sudden movement, Katy eluded the touch, and stepped a little farther from him.

She did not go to Linwood the next day, nor the next; and when she went again there was in her manner a shade more of dignity, which had both amused and interested Morris. He did not know for certain that Wilford had told Katy of the confession made that memorable night when her recovery seemed so doubtful, but he more than half suspected it from the shyness of her manner and from the various excuses she now made for not coming to Linwood every day, as she had heretofore done.

"You do not need me as much as you did," she said to him one morning in September, when he complained of his loneliness, and told how he had waited for her the previous day until night shut down, and he knew she would not come. "You can see better than you did. You are able to sit up all day, and walk about a little, so if I come I am not needed," and seating herself at a respectful distance from him, Katy folded her white hands demurely over her black dress, after having first adjusted the cap worn constantly since the time when she learned that Morris' sight was improving.

"I sometimes think I need you more than I did then, and if you must stay away now, I am ungrateful enough to wish you had not come at all," Morris replied, and Katy's cheeks burned crimson as she felt that the dim eyes, seen through the green shades, were trying to study her as they had not studied her before. "What is that on your head?" Morris asked, rather abruptly. "I have tried to make it out, wondering if it were a handkerchief, and why it was worn."

"It is my cap—the widow's cap—worn for Wilford's sake," was the reply, which silenced Morris for that time, making him feel that between Katy Lennox, the girl, and Katy Cameron, the widow, there was a vast difference, and awakening in his heart a fear lest Wilford Cameron dead should prove as strong a rival as Wilford living had been.

In his great pity for Katy when she was first a widow, Morris had scarcely remembered that she was free, or if it did flash upon his mind, he thrust the thought aside as injustice to the dead; but as the months and the year went by, and he heard constantly from Helen of Katy's increasing cheerfulness, it was not in his nature never to think of what might be, and more than once he had prayed that, if consistent with his Father's will, that the woman he had loved so well should be his yet. If not, he could go his way alone, just as he had always done, knowing that it was right.

Such was the state of Morris' mind when he returned from Washington, but now it was somewhat different. The weary weeks of sickness, during which Katy had ministered to him so kindly, had not been without their effect, and if Morris had loved the frolicsome, childlike Katy Lennox much, he loved far more the gentle, beautiful woman whose character had been so wonderfully developed by suffering, and who was now far more worthy of his love than in her early girlhood.

"I cannot lose her now," was the thought constantly in Morris' mind, as he experienced more and more how desolate were the days which did not bring her to him. "It is twenty months, just, since Wilford died; and George Washington asked Martha Custis for her hand within less time than that after her husband's death," he said to himself one wet October afternoon, when he sat listening dreamily to the patter of the rain falling upon the windows, and looking occasionally across the fields to the farmhouse, in the vain hope of spying in the distance the little airy form, which, in its waterproof and cloud, had braved worse storms than this at the time he was so ill.

But no such figure appeared. He hardly expected it would, but he watched the pathway just the same, and the smoke wreaths rising so high above the farmhouse. The deacon burned out his chimney that day, and Morris, whose sight had greatly improved of late, knew it by the dense, black volume of smoke, mingled with rings of fire, which rose above the roof, remembering so well another rainy day, twenty years ago, when the deacon's chimney was cleaned, and a little, toddling girl, in scarlet gown and white pinafore, had amused herself with throwing into the blazing fire upon the hearth a straw at a time, almost upsetting herself with standing so far back and making such efforts to reach the flames. A great deal had passed since then. The little girl in the pinafore had been both wife and mother. She was a widow now, and Morris glanced across his hearth toward the empty chair he had never seen in imagination filled by any but herself.

Surely, she would some day be his own, and leaning his head upon the cane he carried, he prayed earnestly for the good he coveted, keeping his head down so long that, until it had left the strip of woods and emerged into the open fields, he did not see the figure, wrapped in waterproof and hood, with a huge umbrella over its head and a basket upon its arm, which came picking its way daintily toward the house, stopping occasionally, and lifting up the little, high-heeled Balmoral, which the mud was ruining so completely. Katy was coming to Linwood. It had been baking day at the farmhouse, and remembering how much Morris used to love her custards, Aunt Betsy had prepared him some, which she warranted to "melt in his mouth," and then asked Katy to take them over, so he could have them for tea.

"The rain won't hurt you an atom," she said, as Katy began to demur and glance at the lowering sky. "You can wear your waterproof boots and my shaker, if you like, and I do so want Morris to have them to-night."

Thus importuned, Katy consented to go, but declined the loan of Aunt Betsy's shaker, which being large of the kind, and capeless, too, was not the most becoming headgear a woman could wear. With the basket of custards, and cup of jelly she made herself, Katy finally started forth, Aunt Betsy saying to her, as in the door she stopped to take up her dress: "It must he dretful lonesome for Morris to-day. S'posin' you stay to supper with him, and when it's growin' dark I'll come over for you. You'll find the custards fust-rate."

Katy did not think it very probable that she should stay to tea with Morris, but she made no reply, and walked away, while Aunt Betsy went back to the coat she was patching for her brother, saying to herself:

"I'm bound to fetch that 'round. It's a shame for two young folks, just fitted to each other, to live apart when they might be so happy, with Hannah, and Lucy, and me, close by, to see to 'em, and allus make their soap, and see to the butcherin', besides savin' peneryle and catnip for the children, if there was any."

Aunt Betsy had turned matchmaker in her old age, and day and night she planned how to bring about the match between Morris and Katy. That they were made for each other she had no doubt. From something which Helen inadvertantly let fall she had guessed that Morris wanted Katy prior to her marriage with Wilford. She had suspected as much before, she was sure of it now, and straightway put her wits at work "to make it go," as she expressed it. But Katy was too shy to suit her, and since Morris' convalescence had stayed too much from Linwood. To-day, however, Aunt Betsy "felt it in her bones" that, if properly managed, something would happen, and the custards were but the means to the desired end. With no suspicion whatever of the good dame's intentions, Katy picked her way to Linwood, and leaving her damp garments in the hall, lest Morris should take cold, went at once into the library, where he was sitting near to a large chair kept sacred for her, his face looking unusually cheerful, and the room unusually pleasant, with the bright wood fire on the hearth. She knew he was glad she had come, that he thought more of her being there than of the custards she brought him.

"I have been so lonely, with no company but the rain," he said, pushing the chair a little toward her, and bidding her sit near the fire, where she could dry her feet.

Katy obeyed, and sat down so near to him that had he chose he might have touched her head, which this day was minus cap, or even net, the golden hair combed back and fastened in heavy coils low down on her neck, giving to her a very girlish appearance, as Morris thought, for he could see her now, and while she dried her feet he looked at her eagerly, wondering that the fierce storm she had encountered had left so few traces upon her face. Just about the mouth there was a deep-cut line, but this was all; the remainder of the face was fair and smooth as in her early girlhood, and far more beautiful, just as her character was lovelier, and more to be admired.

Morris had done well to wait if he could win her now. Perhaps he thought so, too, and this was why his spirits became so gay as he kept talking to her, suggesting at last that she should stay to tea. The rain was falling in torrents when he made the proposition. She could not go then, even had she wished it, and though it was earlier than his usual tea time, Morris at once rang for Mrs. Hull, and ordered that tea be served in there as soon as possible.

"I ought not to stay. It is not proper, and my cap at home, too," Katy kept thinking as she fidgeted in her chair, and watched the girl setting the table so cosily for two, and occasionally deferring some debatable point to her as if she were mistress there.

"Shall we have some thin slices of cold chicken to go with the jelly?" she asked, looking at Katy, who answered in the affirmative, wishing she was at home, and deploring again the absence of her cap.

"You can go now, Reekie," Morris said, when the boiling water was poured into the silver kettle, and tea was on the table. "If we need you we will ring."

With a vague wonder as to who would toast the doctor's bread and butter it, Reekie departed, and the two were left together. It was Katy who toasted the bread, kneeling upon the marble hearth, nearly blistering her hands, burning her face and scorching the bread in her nervousness at the novel position in which she so unexpectedly found herself. It was Katy, too, who prepared Morris' tea, and tried to eat, but could not. She was not hungry, she said, and the custard was the only thing she tasted, besides the tea, which she sipped at frequent intervals, so as to make Morris think she was eating more than she was. But Morris was not deceived, nor yet disheartened. Possibly she suspected his intention, and if so, the sooner he reached the point the better. So when the tea equipage was put away, and she began again to speak of going home, he said:

"No, Katy, you can't go yet till I have said what's in my mind to say," and laying his hand upon her shoulder he made her sit down beside him and listen while he told her the love he had borne for her long before she knew the meaning of that word as she knew it now—of the struggle to keep that love in bounds after its indulgence was a sin, of his temptations and victories, of his sincere regret for Wilford, and of his deep respect for her grief, which made her for a time as a sister to him. But that time had passed. She was not his sister now, nor ever could be again. She was Katy, dearer, more precious, more desired even than before another called her wife, and he asked her to be his, to come up there to Linwood and live with him, making the rainy days brighter, balmier, than the sunniest had ever been, and helping him in his work of caring for the poor and sick around them.

"Will Katy come? Will she be the wife of Cousin Morris?"

There was a world of pathos and pleading in the voice which asked this question, just as there was a world of tenderness in the manner in which Morris smoothed and caressed and fondled the bowed head resting on the chair arm. And Katy felt it all, understanding what it was to be offered such a love as Morris offered, but only comprehending in part what it would be to refuse that love. For, alas! her blinded judgment said she must refuse it. Had there been no sad memories springing from that grave in Greenwood, no bitter reminiscences connected with her married life—had Wilford never heard of Morris' love and taunted her with it so often, she might perhaps consent, for she craved the rest there would be with Morris to lean upon. But the happiness was too great for her to accept. It would seem too much like faithlessness to Wilford, too much as if he had been right when he charged her with preferring Morris to himself.

"It cannot be—oh, Morris, it cannot be," she sobbed, when he pressed her for answer. "Don't ask me why—don't ever mention it again, for I tell you it cannot be. My answer is final; it cannot be. I am sorry for you, so sorry. I wish you had never loved me, for it cannot be."

She writhed herself from the arms which tried to detain her, and rising to her feet left the room suddenly, and throwing on her wrappings, quitted the house without another word, leaving basket and umbrella behind, and never knowing she had left them, or how the rain was pouring down upon her unsheltered person until, as she entered the narrow strip of woodland, she was met by Aunt Betsy, who exclaimed at seeing her, and asked:

"What has become of your umberell? Your silk one, too. It's hopeful you haven't lost it. What has happened you?" and coming closer to Katy, Aunt Betsy looked searchingly in her face. It was not so dark that she could not see the traces of recent tears, and instinctively suspecting their nature, she continued: "Catherine, have you gin Morris the mitten?"

"Aunt Betsy, is it possible that you and Morris contrived this plan?" Katy asked, half indignantly, as she began in part to understand her aunt's great anxiety for her to visit Linwood that afternoon.

"Morris had nothing to do with it," Aunt Betsy replied. "It was my doin's wholly, and this is the thanks I git. You quarrel with him and git mad at me, who thought only of your good. Catherine, you know you like Morris Grant, and if he asked you to have him why don't you?"

"I can't, Aunt Betsy. I can't, after all that has passed. It would be unjust to Wilford."

"Unjust to Wilford—fiddlesticks!" was Aunt Betsy's expressive reply, as she started on toward Linwood, saying she was going after the umberell before it got lost, with nobody there to tend to things as they should be tended to. "Have you any word to send?" she asked, hoping Katy had relented.

But Katy had not; and with a toss of her head, which shook the raindrops from her capeless shaker, Aunt Betsy went on her way, and was soon confronting Morris, sitting just where Katy had left him, and looking very pale and sad.

He was not glad to see Aunt Betsy. He would rather be alone until such time as he could control himself and still his throbbing heart. But with his usual affability, he bade Aunt Betsy sit down, shivering a little when he saw her in the chair where Katy had sat, her thin, angular body presenting a striking contrast to the graceful, girlish figure which had sat there an hour since, and the huge India rubbers she held up to the fire as unlike as possible to the boot of fairy dimensions he had admired so much when it was drying on the hearth.

"I met Catherine," Aunt Betsy began, "and mistrusted at once that something was to pay, for a girl don't leave her umberell in such a rain and go cryin' home for nothin'."

Morris colored, resenting for an instant this interference by a third party; but Aunt Betsy was so honest and simple-hearted that he could not be angry long, and listened calmly while she continued:

"I have not lived sixty-odd years for nothing, and I know the signs pretty well. I've been through the mill myself."

Here Aunt Betsy's voice grew lower in its tone, and Morris looked up with real interest, while she went on:

"There's Joel Upham—you know Joel—keeps a tin shop now, and seats the folks in meetin'. He asked me once for my company, and to be smart I told him 'no,' when all the time I meant 'yes,' thinkin' he would ask ag'in, but he didn't, and the next I knew he was keepin' company with Patty Adams, now his wife. I remember I sniveled a little at being taken at my word, but it served me right for saying one thing when I meant another. However, it don't matter now. Joel is as clever as the day is long, but he is a shiftless critter, never splits his kindlin's till jest bedtime, and Patty is pestered to death for wood, while his snorin' nights, she says, is awful, and that I never could abide; so, on the whole, I'm better off than Patty."

Morris laughed a loud, hearty laugh, which did him good, and emboldened his visitor to say more than she had intended saying:

"You just ask her ag'in. Once ain't nothing at all, and she'll come to. She likes you; 'tain't that which made her say no. It's some foolish idea about faithfulness to Wilford, as if he deserved that she should be faithful. They never orto have had one another—never; and now that he is well in heaven, as I do suppose he is, it ain't I who hanker for him to come back. Neither does Katy, and all she needs is a little urging to tell you yes. So ask her again, will you?"

"I think it very doubtful. Katy knew what she was doing, and meant what she said," Morris replied; and with the consoling remark that if young folks would be fools it was none of her business to bother with them, Aunt Betsy pinned her shawl across her chest, and hunting up both basket and umbrella, bade Morris good-night, and went back across the fields to the farmhouse, hearing from Mrs. Lennox that Katy had gone to bed with a racking headache.

"Just the way I felt when I heard about Joel and Patty," Aunt Betsy said to herself, and as she remembered what had helped her then, so, fifteen minutes later, she appeared at Katy's bedside, with a cup of strong sage tea which she bade Katy swallow, telling her it was good for her complaint.

To prevent being urged and annoyed, Katy drank the tea, and then without a question concerning Aunt Betsy's call at Linwood, lay down upon her pillow, asking to be left alone.



CHAPTER LII.

KATY.

"Are you of the same mind still?" Helen asked, when, three weeks later, she returned from New York, and at the hour for retiring sat in her chamber watching Katy as she brushed her wavy hair, occasionally curling a tress around her fingers and letting it fall upon her snowy nightdress.

They had been talking of Morris, whom Katy had only seen once since that rainy night, and that at church, where he had come the previous Sunday. Katy had written an account of the transaction to her sister, who had chosen to reply by word of mouth rather than by letter, and so the first moment they were alone she seized the opportunity to ask if Katy was of the same mind still as when she refused the doctor.

"Yes; why shouldn't I be?" Katy replied. "You better than any one else knew what passed between Wilford and me concerning Morris, and you can—"

"Do you love Morris?" Helen asked, abruptly, without waiting for Katy to finish her sentence.

For an instant the hands stopped in their work, and Katy's eyes filled with tears, which dropped into her lap as she replied:

"More than I wish I did, seeing I must always tell him no. It's strange, too, how the love for him keeps coming in spite of all I can do. I have not been there since, nor spoken with him until last Sunday, but though I did not know he was coming, I knew the moment he entered the church, and when in the first chant I heard his voice, my fingers trembled so that I could scarcely play, while all the time my heart goes out after the rest I always find with him. But it cannot be."

"Suppose Morris had asked you first, what then?" was Helen's next straightforward question, and Katy, who had no secrets from her sister, answered:

"It might have been, perhaps, though I never thought of it then. Oh, Helen, I wish Wilford had never known that Morris loved me."

She was sobbing now, with her head in Helen's lap, and Helen, smoothing her bright hair, said, gently:

"You have taken a morbid fancy, Katy. You do not reason correctly. It is right for you to answer Morris yes, and Wilford would say so, too. When I received your letter apprising me of the refusal, I read it to Bell, who said she was so sorry, and then told what Wilford said before he died. You must have forgotten it, darling. He referred to a time when you would cease to be his widow, and he said he was willing, said so to her, and you. Do you remember it, Katy?"

"Yes, I do now, but I had forgotten. I was so stunned then, so bewildered, that it made no impression. I did not think he meant Morris. Helen, do you believe he meant Morris?" and lifting up her face, Katy looked at her sister with a wistfulness which told how anxiously she waited for the answer.

"I know that he meant Morris," Helen replied. "Bell thinks so, too. So does her father, and both bade me tell you to revoke your decision, to marry Dr. Grant, with whom you will be so happy."

"I cannot. It is too late. I told him no, and, Helen, I told him a falsehood, too, which I wish I might take back," she added. "I said I was sorry he ever loved me, when I was not, for the knowing that he had made me very happy. My conscience has smitten me cruelly since for that falsehood told, not intentionally, for I did not consider what I said."

Here was an idea at which Helen caught at once. She knew just how conscientious Katy was, and by working upon this principle she hoped to persuade her into going over to Linwood and telling Morris that when she said she was sorry he loved her she did not mean it. But this Katy would not do. Helen could tell him, if she liked, but she must not encourage him to hope for a recantation of all she had said to him. She meant the rest. She could not be his wife.

Early the next morning Helen went to Linwood, and the same afternoon Morris returned her call. He had been there two or three times since his return from Washington, but not since Katy's refusal, and her cheeks were scarlet as he met him in the parlor and tried to be natural. He did not look unhappy. He was not taking his rejection very hard, after all, she thought, and the little lady felt a very little piqued to find him so cheerful, and even gay, when she had scarcely known a moment's quiet since the day she carried him the custards, and forgot to bring away her umbrella. As it had rained that day, so it did now, a decided, energetic rain, which set in after Morris came, and precluded the possibility of his going home that night.

"He would catch his death of cold," Aunt Betsy said, while Helen, too, joined her entreaties until Morris consented, and the carriage which came around for him at dark returned to Linwood, with the message that the doctor would pass the night at Deacon Barlow's. A misty, rainy night, who does not enjoy it when sitting by a cheerful fire, they listen dreamily to the falling rain sifting softly through the leafless trees, and answering to the faint sighing of the autumn wind. Morris enjoyed it very much, and but for the green glasses he still wore would have looked and appeared like his former self as he sat in his armchair, now holding the skein of yarn which Aunt Betsy wound, now talking with the deacon of the probable exchange of all the prisoners, a theme which quickened Helen's pulse and sent the blood to her pale cheeks, and again standing by Katy as she played his favorite airs, his rich bass voice mingling with hers and Helen's, the three making finer music, Aunt Betsy said, than that for which she paid two dollars at the playhouse.

He did not often address Katy directly, but he knew each time she moved, and watched every varying expression of her face, feeling a kind of pity for her, when without appearing to do so intentionally, the family, one by one, stole from the room—Uncle Ephraim and Aunt Hannah without any excuse; Aunt Betsy to raise the cakes for breakfast; Mrs. Lennox to wind the clock, and Helen to find a book for which Morris had asked.

Katy might not have thought strange of their departure were it not that neither one came back again, and after the lapse of ten minutes or more she felt convinced that she had purposely been left alone with Morris.

The weather and the family had conspired against her, but after one throb of fear she resolved to brave the difficulty and meet whatever might happen as became a woman of twenty-three, and a widow, too. She knew Morris was regarding her intently as she fashioned into shape the coarse wool sock, intended for some soldier, and she could almost hear her heart beat in the silence which fell between them ere Morris said to her, in a tone which reassured her at once:

"And so you told me a falsehood the other day, and your conscience has troubled you ever since?"

"Yes, Morris," and Katy dropped her stitch as she replied. "Yes; that is, I told you I was sorry that you ever loved me, which was not exactly true, for, after I knew you did, I was happier than before."

Her words implied a knowledge of his love previous to that night at Linwood when he had himself confessed it, and he said to her, inquiringly:

"You knew it then before I told you?"

"From Wilford—yes," Katy faltered, a tear dropping on her cheek as she recalled the circumstances of Wilford's telling her.

"I understand now why you have been so shy of me," Morris said. "It was only natural you should be until you knew what my intentions were; but, Katy, must this shyness continue always? Think now, and say if you did not tell more than one falsehood the other night, as you count falsehoods."

Katy looked wonderingly at him, and he continued;

"You said you could not be my wife. Was that true? Can't you take it back, and give me a different answer?"

Katy's checks were scarlet, and her hands had ceased to flutter about the knitting which lay upon her lap.

"I meant what I said," she whispered; "for knowing, as I do, how Wilford felt, it would not be right for me to be so happy."

"Then it's nothing personal? If there were no harrowing memories of Wilford, you could be happy with me. Is that it, Katy?" Morris asked, coming close to her now, and imprisoning her hands, which she did not try to take away, but let them lie in his as he continued: "Wilford was willing at the last. Have you forgotten that?"

"I had, until Helen reminded me." Katy replied. "But, Morris, the talking of this thing brings Wilford's death back so vividly, making it seem but yesterday since I held his dying head."

She was beginning to relent, Morris knew, and bending nearer to her, he said:

"It was not yesterday. It will be two years in February; and this, you know, is November. I need you, Katy. I want you so much. I have wanted you all your life. Before it was wrong to do so I used each day to pray that God would give you to me, and now I feel just as sure that he has opened the way for you to come to me as I am sure that Wilford is in heaven. He is happy there, and shall a morbid fancy keep you from being happy here? Tell me then, Katy, will you be my wife?"

He was kissing her cold hands, and as he did so he felt her tears dropping on his hair.

"If I say yes, Morris, you will not think that I never loved Wilford, for I did, oh yes, I did. Not exactly as I supposed I might, even then, have loved you, had you asked me first, but I loved him, and I was happy with him, or if there were little clouds, his dying swept them all away."

Katy was proving herself a true woman, who remembered only the good there was in Wilford, and Morris did not love her less for it. She was all the dearer to him, all the more desirable. Once he told her so, winding his arms about her, and resting her head upon his shoulder, where it lay just as it had never lain before, for with the first kiss Morris gave her, calling her "My own little Katy," she felt stealing over her the same indescribable peace she had always felt with him, intensified now, and sweeter from the knowing it would remain if she should will it so. And she did will it so, kissing Morris back when he asked her to, and thus sealing the compact of her second betrothal. It was not exactly like the first. There was no tumultuous emotions, or ecstatic joys, but Katy felt in her inmost heart that she was happier now than then, that between herself and Morris there was more affinity than there had been between herself and Wilford, and as she looked back over the road she had come, and remembered all Morris had been to her, she wondered at her blindness in not recognizing and responding to the love in which she had now found shelter.

It was very late that night when Katy crept up to bed, and Helen, who was not asleep, knew by the face on which the lamplight fell, as Katy sat for a moment in thoughtful mood, looking out into the darkness, that Morris had not sued in vain. Aunt Betsy knew it, too, next morning, by the same look on Katy's face, when she came downstairs, but this did not prevent her saying, abruptly, as Katy stood by the sink:

"Be you two engaged?"

"We are," was Katy's frank reply, which brought back all Aunt Betsy's visions of roasted fowls and frosted cake, and maybe a dance in the kitchen, to say nothing of the feather bed which she had not dared to offer Katy Cameron, but which she thought would come in play for "Miss Dr. Grant."



CHAPTER LIII.

THE PRISONERS.

Many of the captives were coming home. Prison after prison had given up its starving, vermin-eaten inmates, while all along the Northern lines loving hearts were waiting, and friendly hands outstretched to welcome them back to "God's land," as the poor, suffering creatures termed the soil over which waved the Stars and Stripes, for which they had fought so bravely. Wistfully, thousands of eyes ran over the long columns of names of those returned, each eye seeking for its own, and growing dim with tears as it failed to find it, or lighting up with untold joy when it was found.

"Lieutenant Robert Reynolds" and "Thomas Tubbs," Helen read among the list of those just arrived at Annapolis, but "Captain Mark Ray" was not there, and with a sickening feeling of disappointment she passed the paper to her mother-in-law, and hastened away, to weep and pray that what she so greatly feared might not come upon her.

It was after Katy's betrothal, and she was in New York, happy to hear news from Mark, and perhaps to see him ere long, for, as nearly as she could trace him from reports of others, he was last at Andersonville. But there was no mention made of him, no sign by which she could tell whether he still lived, or had long since been relieved from suffering.

Early the next day she heard that Mattie Tubbs had received a telegram from Tom, who would soon be at home, while later in the day Bell Cameron came around to say that Bob was living, but had lost his right arm, and was otherwise badly crippled. It never occurred to Helen to ask if this would make a difference. She only kissed Bell fondly, rejoicing at her good fortune, and then sent her back to the home where there were hot discussions regarding the propriety of receiving into the family a maimed and crippled member.

"It was preposterous to suppose Bob would expect it," Juno said, while the mother admitted that it was a most unfortunate affair, as indeed the whole war had proved. For her part, she sometimes wished the North had let the South go quietly when they wanted to, and so saved thousands of lives, and prevented the country from being flooded with cripples, and negroes, and calls for more men and money. On the whole, she rather doubted the propriety of re-electing Lincoln, and prolonging the war; and she certainly doubted the propriety of giving her daughter to a cripple. There was Arthur Grey, who had lately been so attentive; he was a wealthier man than Lieutenant Bob, and if Bell had any discretion she would take him in preference to a disfigured soldier.

Such was the purport of Mrs. Cameron's remarks, to which her husband listened, his eyes blazing with passion, which, the moment she finished, burst forth in a storm of oaths and invectives against what, with his pet adjective, he called her "Copperhead principles," denouncing her as a traitor, reproaching her for the cruelty which would separate her daughter from Robert Reynolds because he had lost an arm in the service of his country, and then turning fiercely to Bell with the words:

"But it isn't for you to say whether he shall or shall not have Bell. She is of age. Let her speak for herself."

And she did speak, the noble, heroic girl, who had listened, with bitter scorn, to what her mother and sister said, and who now, with elevated nostrils and voice hoarse with emotion, answered slowly and impressively:

"I would marry Lieutenant Reynolds if he had only his ears left to hear me tell him how much I love and honor him! Arthur Grey! Don't talk to me of him! the craven coward, who will neither volunteer nor give a cent for our poor, suffering soldiers, but turns people off with: 'Government provides,' or 'the stores do not reach them,' and all those subterfuges to which mean men resort to keep from giving, and to avoid the draft swore he was forty-five, when we all know better. Don't insult Robert with such a comparison, or think I will break my faith with him."

After this no more was said to Bell, who waited anxiously for further news from Bob, and who, the moment she heard he was at home, went to his father's house, and asked to see him.

He was sleeping when she entered his room, and pushing back the heavy curtain, so that the light would fall more directly upon him, Mrs. Reynolds went out and left her there alone.

With a beating heart, she stood looking at his hollow eyes, his sunken cheek, his short, dry hair, and thick, gray skin—all marks of the brutal treatment he had received. She did not think of his arm until she glanced at the wall where hung a large-sized photograph, taken in full uniform the last time he was at home, and in which his full, well-developed figure showed to good advantage. Could it be that the wreck before her had ever been as full of life and vigor as the picture would indicate, and was that arm which held the sword severed from the body, and left a token of the murderous war?

"Poor Bob! how much he must have suffered," she whispered, and kneeling down beside him, she hid her face in her hands, weeping bitter tears for her armless hero.

The motion awakened Robert, who gazed for a moment in surprise at the kneeling, sobbing maiden; then, when sure it was she, he raised himself in bed, and ere Bell could look up, two arms, one quite as strong as the other, were wound around her neck, and her head was pillowed upon the breast, which heaved with strong emotions as the soldier said:

"My darling Bell, my promised wife, you don't know how much good this meeting does me!"

He kissed her many times, and Bell did not prevent it, but gave him kiss after kiss, then, still doubting the evidence of her eyes, she unclasped his clinging arms, and holding both his poor hands in hers, gave vent to a second gush of tears as she said:

"I am so glad—oh, so glad!"

Then, as it occurred to her that he might perhaps misjudge her, and put a wrong construction upon her joy, she added:

"I did not care for myself, Robert. Don't think I cared for myself, or was ever sorry a bit on my own account."

Bob looked a little bewildered as he replied: "Never were sorry and never cared! I can scarcely credit that, for surely your tears and present emotions belie your words."

Bell knew he had not understood her, and she said:

"Your arm, Robert, your arm. We heard it was cut off, and that you were otherwise mutilated."

"Oh, that's it, then!" and something like his old, mischievous smile glimmered about Bob's mouth as he added: "They spared my arms, but, Bell"—and he tried to look very solemn—"suppose I tell you that they hacked off both my legs, and if you marry me, as you seem to think you will, you must walk all your life by the side of wooden pins and crutches?"

Bell knew by the curl of his lip that he was teasing her, and she answered, laughingly:

"Wooden pins and crutches will be all the fashion when the war is over; badges of honor of which any woman might be proud."

"Well, Bell," he replied, "I am afraid there is no such honor in store for my wife, for if I ever get back my strength and the flesh upon my bones, she must take me with legs and arms included. Not even a scratch or wound of any kind with which to awaken sympathy."

He appeared very bright and cheerful, but when, after a moment, Bell asked for Mark Ray, there came a shadow over his face, and with quivering lips he told a tale which blanched Bell's cheek, and made her shiver with pain and dread as she thought of Helen, the wife who had never known the sweets of matrimony, and who would never taste them now, for Mark was dead—shot down as he attempted to escape from the train which took them from one place of torment to another. He was always devising means of escape, succeeding several times, but was immediately captured and brought back, or sent to some closer quarters, Robert said; but his courage never deserted him, and in the muddy, filthy place where they were herded like so many cattle, without shelter of any kind, he was the life of them all, and by his presence kept many a poor fellow from dying of homesickness and despair. But he was dead; there could be no mistake, for Robert saw him when he jumped, heard the ball which went whizzing after him, saw him as he fell on the open field, saw a man from a rude dwelling nearby go hurriedly toward him, firing his own revolver, as if to make the death deed doubly sure. Then, as the train slacked its speed, with the view, perhaps, to take the body on board, he heard the man who had reached Mark and was bending over him, call out: "Go on; I'll tend to him. He is dead as a stone; bullet went right through here," and he turned the dead man's face toward the train, so all could see the blood pouring from the temple which the finger of the rebel ruffian touched.

"Oh, Helen! poor Helen! How can I tell her, when she loved him so much!" Bell sobbed, while Bob repeated many things to prove how strong was the love the unfortunate Mark Ray had borne for his young wife.

"He used to make pictures of her," he said, "with a pencil which he had, and once he whittled out her face with a lily in the hair. It was a good likeness, too, and I saw Mark kiss it more than once when he thought he was not seen. He had her photograph, it seems, but a brutal keeper took it away, for no earthly purpose except to distress him. I never saw Mark cast down till then, when for two whole days he scarcely spoke, but would stand for hours with his face turned toward the North, and a quivering motion around his lips, as if his heart were broken."

Bell could hear no more, but motioned him to stop.

"It's too terrible even to think about," she said. "Oh, how can I tell Helen!"

"You will do it better than any one else," Bob said. "You will be very tender with her; and, Bell, tell her, as some consolation, that he did not break with the treatment, as most of us wretches did; he kept up wonderfully—said he was perfectly well—and, indeed, he looked so. Tom Tubbs, who was his shadow, clinging to him with wonderful fidelity, will corroborate what I have said. He was with us, he saw him, and only animal force prevented him from leaping from the car and going to him where he fell. I shall never forget his shriek of agony at the sight of that blood-stained face turned an instant toward us."

"Don't, don't!" Bell cried again; "I can't endure it!" and as Mrs. Reynolds then came in, she left her lover, and with a foreboding heart, started for Mrs. Banker's, meeting on the steps Tom Tubbs himself, who had come on an errand similar to her own.

"Sit here in the hall a moment," she said to him, as the servant admitted them both. "I must see Mrs. Ray first."

Helen was reading to her mother-in-law, but she laid down her book and came to welcome Bell, detecting at once the agitation in her manner and asking if she had had bad news from Robert.

"No, Robert is at home; I have just come from there, and he told me—oh! Helen, can you bear it?—Mark is dead—shot twice as he jumped from the train taking him to another prison, Robert saw it, and knew that he was dead."

Bell could get no further, for Helen, who had never fainted in her life, did so now, lying senseless so long that the physician began to think it would be a mercy if she never came back to life, for her reason, he fancied, had fled. But Helen did come back to life with reason unimpaired, and insisted upon hearing every detail of the dreadful story, both from Bell and Tom. The latter confirmed all Lieutenant Reynolds had said, besides adding many items of his own. Mark was dead, there could be no doubt of it; but with the tenacity of a strong, hopeful nature, the mother clung to the illusion that possibly the ball stunned, instead of killing—that he would yet come back; and many a time, as the days went by, that mother started at a step upon the walk or ring of the bell, which she fancied might be his, hearing him sometimes calling in the night storm for her to let him in, and hurrying down to the door only to be disappointed, and go back to her lonely room to weep the dark night through.

With Helen there were no such illusions. After talking calmly and rationally with both Robert and Tom, she knew her husband was dead, and never watched and waited for him as his mother did. She had heard from Mark's companions in suffering all they had to tell, of his captivity, and his love for her which manifested itself in so many different ways. Passionately she had wept over the tress of faded hair which Tom Tubbs brought to her, saying: "He cut it from his head just before we left the prison, and told me if he never got home and I did, to give the lock to you, and say that all was well between him and God—that your prayers had saved him. He wanted you to know that, because, he said, it would comfort you most of all."

And it did comfort her, so that she could almost say with a full heart: "Thy will be done," when she looked up at the clear, wintry heavens and thought that her lost one was there. It was her first real trial, and it crushed her with its magnitude so that she could not submit at once, and many a cry of desolate agony broke the silence of her room, where the whole night through she sat musing of the past, and raining kisses upon the little lock of hair which from the Southern prison had come to her, sole relic of the husband so dearly loved and truly mourned. How faded it was from the rich brown she remembered so well, and Helen gazing at it could realize in part the suffering and want which had worn so many precious lives away. It was strange she never dreamed of him. She often prayed that she might, so as to drive from her mind, if possible, the picture of the prostrate form upon the low, damp field, and the blood-stained face turned in its mortal agony toward the Southern sky and the pitiless foe above it. So she always saw him, shuddering as she wondered if the foe had buried him decently or left his bones to bleach upon the open plain.

Poor Helen, she was widowed indeed, and it needed not the badge of mourning to tell how terribly she was bereaved. But the badge was there, too, for in spite of the hope which said "he is not dead," Mrs. Banker yielded to Helen's importunities, and clothed herself and daughter-in-law in the habiliments of woe, still waiting, still watching, still listening for the step she should recognize so quickly, still looking down the street; but looking, alas! in vain. The winter passed away. Captive after captive came home, heart after heart was cheered by the returning loved one, but for the inmates of No. —— the heavy cloud grew blacker, for the empty chair by the hearth remained unoccupied, and the aching hearts uncheered. Mark Ray did not come back.



CHAPTER LIV.

THE DAY OF THE WEDDING.

Those first warm days of March, 1865, when spring and summer seemed to kiss each other and join hands for a brief space of time, how balmy, how still, how pleasant they were, and how bright the farmhouse looked, where preparations for Katy's second bridal were going rapidly forward. Aunt Betsy, as chief directress, was in her element, for now had come the reality of the vision she had seen so long, of house turned upside down in one grand onslaught of suds and sand, then righted again by magic power, and smelling very sweet and clean from its recent ablutions—of turkeys dying in the barn, of chickens in the shed, of ovens heating in the kitchen, of loaves of frosted cake, with cards and cards of snowy biscuit piled upon the pantry shelf—of jellies, tarts and chicken salad—of home-made wine and home-brewed beer, with tea and coffee, portioned out and ready for the pots, the latter mixed with fresh-laid eggs, and smelling strongly of old Java, and the former as fragrant as two and one-half dollars per pound could buy.

Aunt Betsy was very happy, for this, the brightest, balmiest day of all, was Katy's wedding day, and in the dining-room the table was already set with the new chinaware and silver, a joint Christmas gift from Helen and Katy to their good Aunt Hannah, as real mistress of the house.

"Not plated-ware, but the gen-oo-ine article," Aunt Betsy had explained at least twenty times to those who came to see the silver, and she handled it proudly now as she took it from the flannel bags where Mrs. Deacon Bannister said it must be kept, and placed it on a side table.

The coffee-urn was Katy's, so was the teakettle and the massive pitcher, but the rest was "ours," Aunt Betsy complacently reflected as she contemplated the glittering array, end then hurried off to see what was burning on the stove, or "spell" Uncle Ephraim, working industriously at the ice-cream, out on the back stoop, stumbling over Morris as she went, and telling him he had come too soon—it was not fittin' for him to be there under foot until he was wanted.

Morris probably thought he was wanted, by one member of the family at least, and without replying directly to Aunt Betsy, he knocked with a vast amount of assurance at a side door, which opened directly, and Katy's glowing face looked out, and Katy's voice was heard, not telling him he was not wanted, but saying, joyfully:

"Oh, Morris, it's you. I'm so glad you've come, for I wanted—"

But what she wanted was drowned by a succession of certain mysterious sounds, such as are only produced by a collision of lips, and which made Aunt Betsy mutter to herself:

"It's all right, I know, but so much kissin' as I've seen the last fortni't is enough to turn a body's stomach. I guess old bachelders and widders is commonly wus than fresh hands at it."

And having thus expressed her thoughts, Aunt Betsy seized the handle of the ice-cream freezer and turned it vigorously, thinking, perhaps, of Joel Upham, and what might have been but for a freak of hers. Meanwhile Morris and Katy sat alone in the little sewing-room, where latterly they had passed so many quiet hours together, and where lay the bridal dress, with its chaste and simple decorations. Katy had clung tenaciously to her mourning robes, asking, half tearfully, if she might wear black, as ladies sometimes did. But Morris had promptly answered no. His bride, if she came to him willingly, must not come clad in widow's weeds, for when she became his wife she would cease to be a widow.

And so the black was laid aside, and Katy, in soft tinted colors, with her bright hair curling in her neck, looked as girlish and beautiful as if in Greenwood there were no pretentious monument, with Wilford's name upon it, nor any little grave in Silverton where Baby Cameron slept. She had been both wife and mother, but she was quite as dear to Morris as if she had never borne other name than Katy Lennox, and as he held her for a moment closely to his heart, he thanked God, who had at last given to him the idol of his boyhood and the love of his later years. Across their pathway no shadow was lying, except when they remembered Helen, on whom the mantle of widowhood had so darkly fallen just as Katy was throwing it off.

Poor Helen, the tears always crept to Katy's eyes when, she thought of her, and now as she saw her steal across the road and strike into the winding path which led to the pasture where the pines and hemlock grew, she nestled closer to Morris, and whispered:

"Sometimes I think it wrong to be so happy when Helen is so sad. I pity her so much to-day."

And Helen was to be pitied, for her heart was aching to its very core. She had tried to keep up through the preparations for Katy's bridal, tried to seem interested, and even cheerful, while all the time a hidden agony was tugging at her heart, and life seemed a heavier burden than she could bear.

All her portion of the work was finished now, and in the balmy brightness of that warm April afternoon she went into the fields where she could be alone beneath the soft, summer-like sky, and pour out her pent-up anguish into the ear of Him who had so often soothed and comforted her when other aids had failed. Last night, for the first time since she heard the dreadful news, she had dreamed of Mark, and when she awoke she still felt the pressure of his lips upon her brow, the touch of his arm upon her waist, and the thrilling clasp of his warm hand as it pressed and held her own. But that was a dream, a cruel delusion, and its memory made the day more dark and dreary as she went more slowly up the beaten path, pausing once beneath a chestnut tree and leaning her throbbing head against the shaggy bark as she heard in the distance the shrill whistle of the downward train from Albany, and thought, as she always did when she heard that whistle, "Oh, if that heralded Mark's return, how happy I should be." But many a sound like that had echoed across the Silverton hills, bringing no hope to her, and now, as it again died away in the Cedar Swamp, she pursued her way up the path till she reached the long, white ledge of rocks where with Katy she used to play, and where Bell Cameron had come with Lieutenant Bob, while Morris, too, had more than once led Katy there since the weather was so fine.

"The Lovers' Rock," some called it, for village boys and maidens knew the place, repairing to it often, whispering their vows beneath the overhanging pines, which whispered back again, and told the winds the story which, though so old, is always new to her who listens to him who tells.

Just underneath the spreading pine there was a large, flat stone, and there Helen sat down, gazing sadly upon the valley below, and the clear waters of Fairy Pond gleaming in the April sunshine, which lay so warmly on the grassy hills and flashed so brightly from the cupola at Linwood, where the national flag was flying. For a time Helen watched the banner as it shook its folds to the breeze, then, as she remembered with what a fearful price that flag had been saved from foul dishonor, she hid her face in her hands and sobbed bitterly:

"God help me not to begrudge the price or think I paid too dearly for my country's rights. Oh, Mark, my murdered husband, I may be wrong, but you were dearer to me than many, many countries, and it is hard to give you up—hard to know that the notes of peace which even now float up to us from the South will not waken you in that grave which I can never see. Oh, Mark, my darling, my darling, I loved you so much, I miss you so much, I want you so much. God help me to bear. God help me to say, 'Thy will be done.'"

She was rocking to and fro in her grief, with her hands pressed over her face, as she thus moaned out a prayer that God would help her to feel, as well as to say, "Thy will be done," and for a long time she sat there thus, while the sun crept on further toward the west, and the freshened breeze shook the tasseled pine above her head and kissed the bands of rich brown hair, from which her hat had fallen. She did not heed the lapse of time in the earnest prayer she breathed for entire submission to God's will, nor did she hear the footstep coming up the pathway to the ledge where she was sitting, the footstep which paused at intervals, as if the comer were weary, or else in quest of some one, but which at last came on with rapid bounds as an opening among the trees showed where Helen sat. It was a tall young man who came, a young man sunburned and scarred, with uniform soiled and worn, but with the fire in his brown eyes unquenched, the love in his true heart unchanged, save as it was deeper, more intense for the years of separation, and the long, cruel suspense which was all over now. The grave had given up its dead, the captive was released, and through incredible suffering and danger had reached his Northern home, had sought and found his girl-wife of a few hours, for it was Mark Ray speeding up the path, and holding back his breath as he came close to the bowed form on the rock, feeling a strange throb of awe when he saw the mourning dress, and knew it was worn for him. A moment more, and she lay in his arms, white and insensible, for with the sudden winding of his arms around her neck, the pressure of his lips upon her cheek, the calling of her name, and the knowing it was really her husband, she had uttered a wild, impassioned cry, half of terror, half of joy, and fainted entirely away, just as she did when told that he was dead! There was no water near, but with loving words and soft caresses, Mark brought her back to life, raining both tears and kisses upon the dear face which had grown so white and thin since the Christmas Eve when the wintry starlight had looked down upon their parting. For several moments neither could speak for the great choking joy which wholly precluded the utterance of a word. Helen was the first to rally, and lying in Mark's lap, with her head pillowed on Mark's arm, she whispered:

"Let us thank God together. You, too, have learned to pray."

Reverently Mark bent his face to hers, and the pine boughs overhead heard, instead of mourning notes, a prayer of praise, as the reunited wife and husband fervently thanked God, who had brought them together again.

Not until nearly half an hour was gone, and Helen had begun to realize that the arm which held her so tightly was genuine flesh and blood, and not a mere delusion, did she look up into the face, glowing with so much of happiness and love. Upon the forehead, and just beneath the hair, there was a savage scar, and the flesh about it was red and angry still, showing how sore and painful it must have been, and making Helen shudder as she touched it with her lips, and said:

"Poor, darling Mark! that's where the cruel ball entered; but where is the other scar—the one made by the man who went to you in the fields, and who also fired, they said. I have tried so hard to hate him for firing at a fallen foe."

"Rather, pray for him, darling. Bless him as the savior of your husband's life, the noble fellow but for whom I should not have been here now, for he was a Unionist, as true to the old flag as Abraham himself," Mark Ray replied; and then, as Helen looked wonderingly at him, he laid her head in an easier position upon his shoulder, and told her a story so strange in its details that but for the frequent occurrence of similar incidents it would be pronounced wholly unreal and false.

Of what he suffered in the Southern prisons he did not speak, either then or ever after, but began with the day when, with a courage born of desperation, he jumped from the moving train, and was shot down by the guard. Partially stunned, he still, retained sense enough to know when a tall form bent over him, and to hear the rough but kindly voice which said:

"Play 'possum, Yank. Make b'lieve you're dead, and throw them hellhounds off the scent."

This was the last he knew for many weeks, and when again he awoke to consciousness he found himself on the upper floor of a dilapidated hut, which stood in the center of a little wood, his bed a pile of straw, over which was spread a clean patchwork quilt, while seated at his side, and watching him intently, was the same man who had bent over him in the field, and shouted to the rebels that he was dead.

"I shall never forget my sensations then," Mark said, "for, with the exception of this present hour, when I hold you, my darling, in my arms, and know the danger is over, I never experienced a moment of greater happiness and rest than when, up in that squalid garret, where the rafters, festooned with cobwebs and dust, could be touched by stretching out my hand, and where the sunlight only found an entrance through an aperture in the roof, which admitted the rain as well, I came back to life again, the pain in my head all gone, and nothing left save a delicious feeling of languor, which prompted me to lie quietly for several minutes, examining my surroundings, and speculating upon the chance which brought me there. That I was a prisoner I did not doubt, until the man at my side said to me, cheerily: 'Well, old chap, you've come through it like a major, though I was mighty dubious a spell about that pesky ball. But old Aunt Bab and me fished it out, and since then you've begun to mend.'

"'Where am I? Who are you?' I asked, and he replied: 'Who be I? Why, I'm Jack Jennin's, the rarinest, red-hottest secesh thar is in these yere parts, so the rebs thinks; but 'twixt you and me, boy, I'm the tallest kind of a Union—got a piece of the old flag sewed inside of my boots, and every night before sleepin' I prays Lord gin Abe the victory,' and raise Cain generally in t'other camp, and forgive Jack Jennin's for tellin' so many lies, and makin' b'leeve he's one thing, when you know and he knows he's t'other. If I've spared one Union chap, I'll bet I have a hundred, me and old Bab, a black woman who lives here and tends to the cases I fotch her, till we contrive to git 'em inter Tennessee, whar they hev to shift for themselves.'

"I could only press his bony hand in token of my gratitude, while he went on to say: 'Them was beans I fired at you that day, but they sarved every purpose, and them scalliwags on the train s'pose you were put under ground weeks ago, if, indeed, you wasn't left to rot in the sun, as heaps and heaps on 'em is. Nobody knows you are here but Bab and me, and nobody must know if you want to git off with a whole hide. I could git a hundred dollars by givin' you up, but you don't s'pose Jack Jennin's is agwine to do that ar infernal trick? No, sir,' and he brought his brawny fist down upon his knee with a force which made me tremble, while I tried to express my thanks for his great kindness. He was a noble man, Helen, while Aunt Bab, the colored woman, who nursed me so tenderly, and whose black, bony hands I kissed at parting, was as true a woman as any with a fairer skin and more beautiful exterior.

"For three weeks longer I stayed up in that loft, and in that time three more escaped prisoners were brought there, and one Union refugee from North Carolina. We left in company one wild, rainy night, when the storm and darkness must have been sent for our special protection, and Jack Jennings cried like a little child when he bade me good-by, promising, if he survived the war, to find his way to the North and visit me in New York. I should be prouder, Helen, to welcome him to our home than to entertain the Emperor of France, while Bab should have a seat at my own table, and I be honored by it. There are many such noble spirits there, and when I remember them, I wish to spare a land which I once hoped might be burned with fire until no trace was left. We found them everywhere, and especially among the mountains of Tennessee, where, but for their timely aid, we had surely been recaptured. The negroes, too, were powerful helps, and in no single case has a black man proved treacherous to his suffering white brother, I was not an Abolitionist when the war broke out, but I am one now, and to see the negro free I would almost spill my last drop of blood. They are a patient, all-enduring, faithful race, and without them the bones of many a poor wretch who now sits by his own fireside and recounts the perils he has escaped, would whiten in the Southern swamps or on the Southern mountains. Three times were we chased by bloodhounds, and in every case the negroes were the means of saving us from certain death. For weeks we were hidden in a cave, hunted by the Confederates by day, and fed at night by negroes, who told us when and where to go. With blistered feet and bruised limbs, we reached the lines at last, when fever attacked me for the second time and brought me near to death. Somebody wrote to you, but you never received it, and when I grew better I would not let them write again, as I wanted to surprise you. As soon as I was able I started North, my thoughts full of the joyful meeting in store—a meeting which I dreaded, too, for I knew you must think me dead, and I felt so sorry for you, my darling, knowing, as I did, you would mourn for your soldier husband. That my darling has mourned is written on her face, and needs no words to tell it; but that is over now," Mark said, folding his wife closer to him, and kissing the pale lips which whispered:

"Yes, I have been so sorry, Mark—so tired, so sad, and life was such a burden, I would gladly have laid it down."

"The burden is now removed," Mark said, and then he told her how, arrived at Albany, he had telegraphed to his mother, asking where Helen was.

"In Silverton," was the reply, and so he came on in the morning train, meeting his mother in Springfield, as he had half expected to do, knowing that she could leave New York in time to join him there.

"No words of mine," he said, "are adequate to describe the thrill of joy with which I looked again upon the hills and rocks so identified with you that I loved them for your sake, hailing them as old, familiar friends, and actually growing sick and faint with excitement when, through the leafless woods, I caught the gleam of Fairy Pond, where I gathered the lilies for you. Does my darling remember it?"

He knew she did by the clasp of her hand, and he continued:

"Had a dead body risen from its grave, and walked into the farmhouse, carrying its coffin with it, it could not have created greater consternation, or made worse havoc with the people's wits than did my sudden appearance in their midst. Good Aunt Betsy, I am sorry to say, fell the entire length of the cellar stairs, spraining her ankle, bruising her elbow shockingly, and, direst calamity of all, in her estimation, breaking the dish of charlotte russe she was holding in her hand. There is a wedding in progress, I learned from mother, and it seems very meet that I should come at this time, making, in reality, a double wedding, when I can truly claim my bride," and Mark kissed Helen passionately, laughing to see how the blushes broke over her white face, and burned upon her neck.

Those were happy moments which they passed together upon that ledge of rocks, happy enough to atone for all the dreadful past, and when at last they arose and slowly retraced their steps to the farmhouse, it seemed to Mark that Helen's cheeks were rounder, fuller, than when he found her, while Helen knew that the arm on which she leaned was stronger than when it first inclosed her an hour or two ago.



CHAPTER LV.

THE WEDDING.

Many times Aunt Betsy had hobbled to the door, and shading her eyes with her hand, had looked wistfully up the hill in quest of Mark and Helen, wondering why they stayed out so long, when they must know the sun was nearly down, and wondering next if Morris would never go home about his business and give Katy a chance to dress.

Poor, worried, unfortunate Aunt Betsy! her foot was very lame, and her arm was badly bruised; but she bandaged it up in camphor and sugar, wincing at the terrible smart when the wash was at first applied, but saying to Morris, who asked if it did not hurt cruelly: "Yes, it hurts some, but nothin' to what the poor soldiers is hurt; and I wouldn't mind it an atom if I hadn't broke the dish with the heathenish name."

And, indeed, the loss of the charlotte russe did weigh heavily on Aunt Betsy's mind, proving the straw too many, and only Bell Cameron, who, with Lieutenant Bob, had come on the same train with Mark and Mrs. Banker, had power to reassure her by telling her that charlotte russe was not essential at all; that, for her part, she was glad to have it out of sight, as it was her especial detestation. This comforted Aunt Betsy, who had made many of her preparations for the wedding with a direct reference to the "city folks" so confidently expected. The substantials were for the neighbors—those who would have no supper at home, but reserve their appetites for the wedding viands; while the delicacies, the knickknacks, were designed exclusively for "them stuck-up critters, the Camerons," not one of whom, it now seemed, would be present except Bell. Father Cameron was not able to come; he would gladly have done so if he could, and he sent his blessing to Katy, with the wish that she might be very happy in her second married life. This message Bell gave to Katy, and then tried to form some reasonable excuse for her mother's and Juno's absence, for she could not tell how haughtily both had declined the invitation, Juno finding fault because Katy had not waited longer than two years, and Mrs. Cameron blaming her for being so very vulgar as to be married at home, instead of in church, where she ought to be. On this point Katy herself had been a little disquieted, feeling how much more appropriate it was that she be married in the church, but shrinking from standing again a bride at the same altar where she had once before been made a wife. She could not do it, she finally decided; there would be too many harrowing memories crowding upon her mind, and as Morris did not particularly care where the ceremony was performed, provided he got Katy at the last, it was settled that it should be at the house, even though Mrs. Deacon Bannister did say that she had supposed Dr. Grant too High Church to do anything as Presbyterianny as that.

Bell's arrival at the farmhouse was timely, for the unexpected appearance in their midst of one whom they looked upon as surely dead had stunned and bewildered the family to such an extent that it needed the presence of just such a matter-of-fact, self-possessed woman as Bell to bring things back to their original shape. It was wonderful how the city girl fitted into the vacant niches, seeing to everything which needed seeing to, and still finding time to steal away alone with Lieutenant Bob, who kept her in a painful state of blushing by constantly wishing it was his bridal night as well as Dr. Grant's, and by inveighing against the weeks which must still intervene ere the day appointed for the grand ceremony to take place in Grace Church, and which was to make Bell his wife.

* * * * *

"Ain't Morris ever goin' home? He won't be dressed in time, as sure as the world, if he stays here much longer," Aunt Betsy said a dozen times, until at last her patience was exhausted, and going boldly in where he was, she bade him start in at once, or he would not have time to put on his best coat and jacket, let alone Katy's changin' her clothes.

Thus importuned, Morris quitted the house, just as Mark and Helen came slowly up, their faces happier, if possible, than his own, and telling of the great joy which had succeeded their dark night of sorrow.

* * * * *

"Come in here, Helen, I have something to show you," Mrs. Banker said, after she had again embraced and wept over her long-lost son, whose return was not quite real yet, and leading her daughter-in-law to her bedroom, she showed her the elegant white silk which had been made for her just after her marriage, two years before, and which with careful forethought she had brought with her, as more suitable now for the wedding than Helen's mourning weeds.