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She stood before the minister who was to marry them, very tall andstraight. With lips slightly parted she looked at him steadfastly, not atthe man beside her who was about to become her husband. Her father, with alast gentle pressure of her arm, had taken his place behind her. In thehush that had fallen throughout the little chapel, all the restlessmovement of the people who had gathered there this warm June morning wasstilled, in the expectation of those ancient words that would unite the twobefore the altar. Through the open window behind the altar a spray of youngwoodbine had thrust its juicy green leaves and swayed slowly in the air,which was heavy with earthy odors of all the riotous new growth that waspushing forward in the fields outside. And beyond the vine could be seen abit of the cloudless, rain-washed sky.
There before the minister, who was fumbling mechanically at hisprayer-book, a great space seemed to divide the man and the woman from allthe others, their friends and relatives, who had come to witness theceremony of their union. In the woman's consciousness an unexpectedstillness settled, as if for these few moments she were poised between thepast of her whole life and the mysterious future. All the preoccupations ofthe engagement weeks, the strange colorings of mood and feeling, all thepetty cares of the event itself, had suddenly vanished. She did not seeeven him, the man she was to marry, only the rugged face of the oldminister, the bit of fluttering vine, the expanse of blue sky. She stoodbefore the veil of her life, which was about to be drawn aside.
This hushed moment was broken by the resonant tones of the minister as hebegan the opening words of the sacrament that had been said over so manymillions of human beings. Familiar as the phrases were, she did not realizethem, could not summon back her attention from that depth within of awedexpectancy. After a time she became aware of the subdued movements in thechapel, of people breaking into the remote circle of her mystery,—evenhere they must needs have their part—and of the man beside her lookingintently at her, with flushed face. It was this man, this one here at herside, whom she had chosen of all that might have come into her life; andsuddenly he seemed a stranger, standing there, ready to become her husband!The woodbine waved, recalling to her flashing thoughts that day two yearsbefore when the chapel was dedicated, and they two, then mere friends, hadplanted this vine together. And now, after certain meetings, after somesurface intercourse, they had willed to come here to be made one…
"And who gives this woman in marriage?" the minister asked solemnly,following the primitive formula which symbolizes that the woman is to bemade over from one family to another as a perpetual possession. She gaveherself of course! The words were but an outgrown form…
There was the necessary pause while the Colonel came forward, and takinghis daughter's hand from which the glove had been carefully turned back,laid it gently in the minister's large palm. The father's lips twitched,and she knew he was feeling the solemnity of his act, that he wasrelinquishing a part of himself to another. Their marriage—her father'sand mother's—had been happy,—oh, very peaceful! And yet—hers must bedifferent, must strike deeper. For the first time she raised her shiningeyes to the man