nd if it proved the Beginning, they
would rejoice together. At sight of every shooting meteor, Julia clung
almost convulsively to August.

When they entered the castle, Jonas and Cynthy were already standing up
before the presiding elder, and he was about to begin. Cynthy's face
showed her sense of the awfulness of marrying at a moment of such
fearful expectation, or perhaps she was troubling herself for fear that
so much happiness out of heaven was to be had only in the commission of
a capital sin. But, like most people whose consciences are stronger than
their intellects, she found great consolation in taking refuge under the
wing of ecclesiastical authority. To be married by a presiding elder was
the best thing in the world next to being married by a bishop.

Whatever fear of the swift-coming judgment others might have felt, the
benignant old elder was at peace. Common-sense, a clean conscience, and
a child-like faith enlightened his countenance, and since he tried to be
always ready, and since his meditations made the things of the other
life ever present, his pulse would scarcely have quickened if he had
felt sure that the archangel's trump would sound in an hour. He neither
felt the subdued fear shown on the countenance of Cynthy Ann, nor the
strong skeptical opposition of Andrew, whose face of late had grown
almost into a sneer.

"Do you take this woman to be your lawful and wedded wife--"

And before the elder could finish it, Jonas blurted out, "You'd better
believe I do, my friend."

And then when the old man smiled and finished his question down to, "so
long as ye both shall live," Jonas responded eagerly, "Tell death er the
jedgment-day, long or short."

And Cynthy Ann answered demurely out of her frightened but too happy
heart, and the old man gave them his benediction in an apostolic fashion
that removed Cynthy Ann's scruples, and smoothed a little of the
primness out of her face, so that she almost smiled when Jonas said,
"Well! it's done now, and it can't be undone fer all the Goshorns in
Christendom er creation!"

And then the old gentleman--for he was a gentleman, though he had always
been a backwoodsman--spoke of the excitement, and said that it was best
always to be ready--to be ready to live, and then you would be ready for
death or the judgment. That very night the end might come, but it was
not best to trouble one's self about it. And he smiled, and said that it
was none of his business, G