gave the good Samaritan a stony stare, and took Algy's arm
and sailed into the church before the Rector's wife, without a word
said; while all the women from the village looked at each other and
said, "Well, I never!" under their breath.

"Let me give you my arm, Mrs. Hudson," said Harry Compton, "and please
pardon me that I did not introduce my sister to you. She is dreadfully
shy, don't you know, and never does speak to anyone when she has not
been introduced."

"My observation was a very simple one," said Mrs. Hudson, very angry,
yet pleased to lean upon an Honourable arm.

"My dear lady!" cried the good-natured Harry, "the Jew never wore a
shawl in her life----"

And all this time the organ had been pealing, the white vision passing
up the aisle, the simple villagers chanting forth their song about the
breath that breathed o'er Eden. Alas! Eden had not much to do with it,
except perhaps in the trembling heart of the white maiden roused out of
her virginal dream by the jarring voices of the new life. The laughter
outside was a dreadful offence to all the people, great and small, who
had collected to see Elinor married.

"What could you expect? It's that woman whom they call the Jew,"
whispered Lady Huntingtower to her next neighbour.

"She should be put into the stocks," said Sir John, scarcely under his
breath, which, to be sure, was also an interruption to the decorum of
the place.

And then there ensued a pause broken by the voice, a little lugubrious
in tone, of the Rector within the altar rails, and the tremulous answers
of the pair outside. The audience held its breath to hear Elinor make
her responses, and faltered off into suppressed weeping as the low tones
ceased. Sir John Huntingtower, who was very tall and big, and stood out
like a pillar among the ladies round, kept nodding his head all the time
she spoke, nodding as you might do in forced assent to any dreadful vow.
Poor little thing, poor little thing, he was saying in his heart. His
face was more like the face of a man at a funeral than a man at a
wedding. "Blessed are the dead that die in the Lord"--he might have been
nodding assent to that instead of to Elinor's low-spoken vow. Phil
Compton's voice, to tell the truth, was even more tremulous than
Elinor's. To investigate the thoughts of a bridegroom would be too much
curiosity at such a moment. But I think if the secrets of the hearts
could be revealed, Phil for a moment was sorry for poor