Mark, and he confessed the whole, telling him far more of
Silverton than he had told his mother, and then asking what his friend
would do were the case his own.

Fond of fun and frolic, Mark laughed immoderately at Wilford's
description of Aunt Betsy bringing her "herrin' bone" patchwork into the
parlor, and telling him it was a part of Katy's "settin' out," but when
it came to her hint for an invitation to visit in New York, the amused
young man roared with laughter, wishing so much that he might live to
see the day when poor Aunt Betsy Barlow stood ringing for admittance at
No. ---- Fifth Avenue.

"Wouldn't it be rich, though, the meeting between your Aunt Betsy and
Juno?" and the tears fairly poured down the young man's face.

But Wilford was too serious for trifling, and after his merriment had
subsided, Mark talked with him candidly, sensibly, of Katy Lennox, whose
cause he warmly espoused, telling Wilford that he was far too sensitive
with regard to family and position.

"You are a good fellow on the whole, but too outrageously proud," he
said. "Of course this Aunt Betsy in her pongee, whatever that may be,
and the uncle in his shirt sleeves, and this mother whom you describe as
weak and ambitious, are objections which you would rather should not
exist; but if you love the girl, take her, family and all. Not that you
are to transport the whole colony of Barlows to New York," he added, as
he saw Wilford's look of horror, "but make up your mind to endure what
cannot be helped, resting yourself upon the fact that your position is
such as cannot well be affected by any marriage you might make, provided
the wife were right."

This was Mark Ray's advice, and it had great weight with Wilford, who
knew that Mark came, if possible, from a better line of ancestry than
himself, inasmuch as his maternal grandmother was a near relative of the
English Percys, and the daughter of a lord. And still Wilford hesitated,
waiting until the winter was over before he came to the decision which
when it was reached was firm as a granite rock. He had made up his mind
at last to marry Katy Lennox if she would accept him, and he told his
mother so in the presence of his sisters, when one evening they were all
kept at home by the rain. There was a sudden uplifting of Bell's
eyelashes, a contemptuous shrug of her shoulders, and then she went on
with the book she was reading, wondering if Katy was at all inclined to
literature, and thinkin