families of Harvey were all invited to the wedding. And the old and the
new and most of the intermediary families of no particular caste or
standing, came to the reception after the ceremony. But because she had
the best voice in town, Margaret Mueller sang "Oh, Promise Me," in a
remote bedroom--to give the effect of distant music, low and sweet, and
after that song was over, and after Henry Fenn's great pride had been
fairly sated, Margaret Mueller mingled with the guests and knew more of
the names and stations of the visiting nobility from the state house and
railroad offices than any other person present. And such is the
perversity of the male sex that there were more "by Georges," and more
"Look--look, looks," and more faint whistles, and more "Tch--tch tchs,"
and more nudging and pointing among the men when Margaret appeared than
when the bride herself, pink and white and beautiful, came down the
stairs. Even the eyes of the groom, as he stood beside the bride, tall,
youthful, strong, and handsome as a man may dare to be and earn an
honest living, even his eyes sometimes found themselves straying toward
the figure and face of the beautiful girl whom he had scarcely noticed
while she worked in the court house. But this may be said for the groom,
that when his eyes did wander, he pulled them back with an almost
irritated jerk, and seemed determined to keep them upon the girl by his
side.
As for the wedding ceremony itself--it was like all others. The women
looked exultant, and the men--the groom, the bride's father, the
groomsmen, and even Rev. John Dexter, had a sort of captured look and
went through the service as though they wished that marriages which are
made in Heaven were celebrated there also. But after the service was
actually accomplished, after the bride and groom had been properly
congratulated, after the multitude had been fed in serried ranks
according to social precedence, after the band on the lawn outside had
serenaded the happy couple, and after further interminable handshaking
and congratulations, from those outside, after the long line of invited
guests had filed past the imposing vista of pickle dishes, cutlery,
butter dishes and cake plates, reaching around the walls of three
bedrooms,--to say nothing of an elaborate wax representation of nesting
cupids bearing the card of the Belgian Society from the glass works and
sent, according to the card, to "Mlle. Lille'n'en Pense"; after the
carriage, bedecked and bedizened with rice and shoes and ribbons, that
was supposed to bear away the bride and groom, had gone amid the
shouting and the tumult of the populace, and after the phaeton and the
sorrel mare had actually taken the bride and groom from the barn to the
railway station, after the fiddle and the bassoon and the horn and the
tinkling cymbal at Morty Sands's dance had frayed and torn the sleep of
those pale souls who would sleep on such a night in Harvey, Grant Adams
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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