In fact, there was nothing intrinsically interesting in the couple before them. They possessed not even the picturesqueness of speech and costume which belongs to the plebeian orders of older civilizations. These were the people that seemed to justify Schopenhauer's cynical contention concerning the economy of Nature, who invests youth with just enough transient beauty to ensure the perpetuation of the race, making men and women serve her purpose under the delusion that they are free agents and ministers to their own pleasure. Here were no pomp and circumstance to interpose their false colours before the sordid vista of the future. It lay glaringly before the imagination of the onlookers; and to avoid depths of spiritual depression, they had need to remind themselves of the happy blindness of those that moved their pity. Leigh might perhaps have indulged in far other thoughts had the wedding been of a different character, or had he perceived any suggestion of a romantic mood in the woman at his side. Quick to feel an atmosphere, he found that he had caught from her a sombre view. How deeply she thought or felt he could only guess, but hers was a personality that suggested depth, and the far sadness of her gaze shut the door between them which he had supposed about to open wider. The bishop turned unexpectedly. "The groom has forgotten the ring," he said to his daughter. "Will you lend him yours?" She glanced quickly at her hands, and a delicate colour crept into her face. "I must have left it in my room," she answered. She made no motion to go for it, and, turning from her with a hint of impatience, he drew his seal ring from his finger. The incident, slight as it was, assumed unusual significance in the minds of the spectators, and gave the ceremony a tone akin to comedy. Perhaps they enjoyed the bishop's impatience, the sight of the episcopal ring upon the girl's finger; or it may be that these things reminded them of the portentous solemnity into which they had sunk. Miss Wycliffe especially seemed to welcome the diversion, and showed an ebullient vivacity when she offered her congratulations, which Leigh had not previously observed in her.