As Graeme proposed, they talk still of that wedding in Sark.
Everything went smoothly. The Vicar had coached himself, by wifely
tuition and much private repetition, into a certain familiarity with
the Wedding Service in English, but would still have been more at home
with it in French.
The church was more crowded than it had been within the memory of
woman. Margaret looked charming, and Miss Penny absolutely pretty.
Charles Svendt could hardly take his eyes off her, and caught himself
wondering what the dooce she had done to herself since last night.
For, by Jove! she's as pretty almost as Margaret herself--he said to
himself.
And if Jeremiah Pixley could have seen his son, in fatherly fashion
give away the bride that should have been his, he would without doubt
have had fits--if the first one had not been of such a character as to
obviate the necessity for any additional ones.
The habitants, old and young, had made holiday, donned their best as
if it were Sunday, and crowded the church as if it were all the
Sundays of the year rolled into one.
The Vicar had serious thoughts of improving so unique an occasion, but
wisely decided to confine himself to the intricacies of the English
language as displayed in The Form of the Solemnisation of Matrimony.
Mrs. Vicar presided at the harmonium, which had been specially tuned
for the occasion, and the choir enjoyed to the full their privileges
of position and observation and made ample use of them.
And when his friends knelt before the chancel rail,--to the exceeding
scandal of the Vicar and Mrs. Vicar and the choir and all who saw, and
to the vast enjoyment of Miss Penny and Charles Svendt and all the
other youngsters in the place,--Punch walked solemnly up the aisle and
stood behind them, with slow-swinging tail and a look of anticipation
on his gravely interested face, while outside, Scamp, in the hands of
some enterprising stickler for forms and ceremonies, rent the air with
sharp cries of disappointment.
But John Graeme's soul, uplifted mightily within him at this glorious
consummation of his hopes, and ranging high among the stars, saw none
of these things. He held Margaret's hand in his, and looked into her
radiant and blushing face, and vowed mighty vows for her happiness,
and thanked God fervently for bringing this great thing to pass.
And Margaret's eye caught the marble slab, placed in the side wall of
the chancel by the late Seigneur who built it, and prayed in her heart
that the temple of their two lives might equally be builded--"to the
Glory of God and with much care."