The Following of the Star: A RomanceBarclay, Florence L. (Florence Louisa)
General
The Following of the Star: A Romance
Barclay, Florence L. (Florence Louisa)
Clergy -- Fiction; Inheritance and succession -- Fiction; Marriage -- Fiction; Missionaries -- Fiction
Sarah, from her pew on the opposite side, glared at Mrs. Marmaduke Vane.
The glories of her own new bonnet and crimson feather had suffered
eclipse. Yet--though the nodding purple plumes opposite seemed to beckon
him--she marked, with satisfaction, that David did not even glance in
their direction. She--Sarah--had had a hand-shake from the bridegroom.
Mrs. Marmaduke Vane, in all her grandeur, had failed to catch his eye.
Truth to tell, no sooner did David become aware of the arrival of
Diana's chaperon and of her lawyer, who were, he knew, accompanying her,
than he ceased to have eyes for any one or anything save for the place
where she herself would presently appear.
He took up his position alone, at the chancel step, slightly to the
right; and, standing sideways to the altar, fixed his eyes upon the
distant entrance at the bottom of the church.
Suddenly, from the organ-loft above it, where the golden pipes and
carved wood casing stand so quaintly on either side of a stained-glass
window, there wafted down the softest, sweetest strains of tender
harmony. A musician, with the touch and soul of a true artist, was
playing a lovely setting of David's own, to "Lead, kindly Light." This
was a surprise of Diana's. Diana loved arranging artistic surprises.
In his astonishment and delight at hearing so unexpected and so
beautiful a rendering of his own theme, David lifted his eyes for a
moment to the organ-loft.
During that moment the door must have opened and closed without making
any sound, for, when he dropped his eyes once more to the entrance,
there, at the bottom of the church, pausing--as if uncertain whether to
advance or to retreat--was standing his Lady of Mystery.
David's heart stood still.
He had been watching for Diana--that bewildering compound of sweetness
and torment, for whose sake he had undertaken to do this thing--and here
was his own dear Lady of Mystery, the personification of softness and of
silence, waiting irresolute at the bottom of this great London church,
just as she had waited in the little church at Brambledene, on that
Sunday evening, seven weeks ago.
How far Diana consciously intended to appear thus to David, it would be
difficult to say; but she purposely wore in every detail just what she
had been wearing on the Sunday evening when he saw her first; and
possibly the remembrance of that evening, now also strongly in her own
mind, accounted for her seeming once more to be enveloped in that
atmosphere of soft, silent detachment from the outer world, which had
led David to call her his Lady of Mystery.
In a swift flash of self-revelation, David realised, more clearly than
before, that he had loved this girl he was now going to marry, ever
since he first saw her, standing as she now stood--tall, graceful,
irresolute; uncertain whether to advance or to retreat.
Down the full length of that dimly lighted church, David's look met the
hesitating sweetness of those soft grey eyes; met, and held them.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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