ve; and little nieces and nephews, all in their
best clothes. Noyon had not seen anything so gay in years. There was
bustle and business and running up and down stairs. The _poste_, usually
clamorous with the hoarse dialect of northern France, hummed and rippled
with polite conversation and courtly greetings. The bride appeared. The
bridegroom's face lost its perturbed expression in his unaffected
happiness at seeing her. Photographs were taken; she, gracious and
bending in a cloud of tulle; he, stiffly upright but smiling resolutely.
They were off in a string of carriages--sagging old carriages
resurrected from the dust--while a few of us hastened to the cathedral
by a short cut to take more pictures as they entered.

The vast nave engulfed us in its desolation. The mutilated apse seemed
to be far, far away, and one looked at it fearfully. High above through
the broken vaulting shone the indestructible blue, and through the
hollow windows the breath of Heaven wandered free. The little bride
stepped bravely between the piles of refuse, daintily gathering her
dress about her. A dirty sheet on the wall flapped without warning, and
we had a glimpse of a gaunt and pallid crucifix, instantly shrouded
again in a spasm of wind. Passing under an arch we entered a less
demolished chapel. Here all Noyon was waiting.

Thin and quavering through the expectant hush came the chords of a
harmonium. Rustlings and whisperings among the closely packed people as
the misty white figure advanced slowly into sight. At the altar the
silver-haired bishop turned his scholarly face upon her, full of
tenderness; and when he spoke, his voice seemed an assurance of peace
and purity. The service was long. In France one listens to a sermon
when one is married, and the pretty bridesmaids came round for three
collections. The bishop talked of her father, his friend, who had died
under cruel circumstances. Shoulders heaved in the congregation, and in
a dark corner a sob was stifled.

"You have suffered, my children. There has been a mighty mowing and a
winter of death, and our mother the earth has lain barren. But today
stand up, O children, and listen and feel. We are united in these ruins
by more than sorrow. What are these pulsations that beat this day upon
our soul?"

The words flowed on following the ancient grooves of sermons, but the
loving voice thrilled us. It floated through the dim atmosphere into our
consciousness, holding us as in a dre