his bride that morning, and so her face was shadowy compared with the
tangibility of those machines. Most of the other maidens were married
women by now, and the situation was growing desperate. From the female
camp came terrible rumours of bridesmaids in hysterics, and a bride that
tore her wreath in a passion of shame and humiliation. Eliphaz sent word
that he would give an I O U for the balance, but that he really could
not muster any more current coin. Sugarman instructed the ambassador to
suggest that Eliphaz should raise the money among his friends.

And the short spring day slipped away. In vain the minister, apprised of
the block, lengthened out the formulae for the other pairs, and blessed
them with more reposeful unction. It was impossible to stave off the
Leibel-Green item indefinitely, and at last Rose remained the only
orange-wreathed spinster in the synagogue. And then there was a hush of
solemn suspense, that swelled gradually into a steady rumble of babbling
tongues, as minute succeeded minute and the final bridal party still
failed to appear. The latest bulletin pictured the bride in a dead
faint. The afternoon was waning fast. The minister left his post near
the canopy, under which so many lives had been united, and came to add
his white tie to the forces for compromise. But he fared no better than
the others. Incensed at the obstinacy of the antagonists, he declared he
would close the synagogue. He gave the couple ten minutes to marry in
or quit. Then chaos came, and pandemonium--a frantic babel of suggestion
and exhortation from the crowd. When five minutes had passed a legate
from Eliphaz announced that his side had scraped together twenty pounds,
and that this was their final bid.

Leibel wavered; the long day's combat had told upon him; the reports
of the bride's distress had weakened him. Even Sugarman had lost his
cocksureness of victory. A few minutes more and both commissions might
slip through his fingers. Once the parties left the synagogue, it would
not be easy to drive them there another day. But he cheered on his man
still: one could always surrender at the tenth minute.

At the eighth the buzz of tongues faltered suddenly, to be transposed
into a new key, so to speak. Through the gesticulating assembly swept
that murmur of expectation which crowds know when the procession is
coming at last. By some mysterious magnetism all were aware that the
BRIDE herself--the poor hysteric bride--had