father's and then my husband's, and then the voices of many
others, in light conversation mingled with trills of laughter. And then,
in a moment, in a twinkling, as fast as a snowflake melts upon a stream,
the spell of the marriage service seemed to break.

I have heard since that my eyes were wet at that moment and I seemed to
have been crying all through the ceremony. I know nothing about that,
but I do know that I felt a kind of internal shudder and that it was
just as if my soul had suddenly awakened from an intoxicating drug.

The organ began to play the Wedding March, and my husband, putting my
arm through his, said, "Come."

There was much audible whispering among the people waiting for us in the
church, and as we walked towards the door I saw ghostly faces smiling at
me on every side, and heard ghostly voices speaking in whispers that
were like the backward plash of wavelets on the shore.

"Sakes alive, how white's she's looking, though," said somebody, and
then somebody else said--I could not help but hear it--

"Dear heart knows if her father has done right for all that."

I did not look at anybody, but I saw Martin's mother at the back, and
she was wiping her eyes and saying to some one by her side--it must have
been the doctor--

"God bless her for the sweet child veen she always was, anyway."

The storm had increased during the service; and the sacristan, who was
opening the door for us, had as much as he could do to hold it against
the wind, which came with such a rush upon us when we stepped into the
porch that my veil and the coronal of myrtle and orange blossoms were
torn off my head and blown back into the church.

"God bless my sowl," said somebody--it was Tommy's friend, Johnny
Christopher--"there's some ones would he calling that bad luck, though."

A band of village musicians, who were ranged up in the road, struck up
"The Black and Grey" as we stepped out of the churchyard, and the next
thing I knew was that my husband and I were in the carriage going home.

He had so far recovered from the frightening effects of the marriage
service that he was making light of it, and saying:

"When will this mummery come to an end, I wonder?"

The windows of the carriage were rattling with the wind, and my husband
had begun to talk of the storm when we came upon the trunk of a young
tree which had been torn up by the roots and was lying across the road,
so that our coachman had to get down and remov