sterious
harping of wind-fingers as light and yet as profound as those of some
dreaming organist.

The girl, with her eyes fixed on that living emblem of strength and
tranquillity, felt as though instead of leaving a house, she were
entering a cathedral--though of man-built cathedrals she knew nothing.
It was the spirit which hallows cathedrals that brought to her deep
young eyes a serenity and thanksgiving that made her face seem ethereal
in its happiness--the spirit of benediction, of the presence of God and
of human sanctuary.

So she went as if she were treading clouds to the waiting figure of the
man who was to perform the ceremony.

When the clear voice of the justice of the peace sounded out as the
pair--or rather the trio--stood before him at the foot of the great
walnut, the astonishment which had been simmering in the crowd broke
into audible being again and with a rising tempo.

The tone with which old Jase read the service was full and sonorous and
the responses were clear as bell metal. On the fringe of the gathering
an old woman's whispered words carried to those about her:

"Did ye heer thet? Jase called him Parish Thornton--I thought he give
ther name of Cal Maggard!"

Even Bas Rowlett, whose nerves were keyed for an ordeal, started and
almost let the leaning bridegroom fall.

The loft of old Caleb's barn had been cleared for that day, and through
the afternoon the fiddles whined there, alternating with the twang of
banjo and "dulcimore." Old Spike Crooch, who dwelt far up at the
headwaters of Little Tribulation, where the "trails jest wiggle an'
wingle about," and who bore the repute of a master violinist, had vowed
that he "meant ter fiddle at one more shin-dig afore he laid him down
an' died"--and he had journeyed the long way to carry out his pledge.

He had come like a ghost from the antique past, with his old bones
straddling neither horse nor mule, but seated sidewise on a brindle
bull, and to reach the place where he was to discourse music he had made
a "soon start" yesterday morning and had slept lying by the roadside
over night.

Now on an improvised platform he sat enthroned, with his eyes
ecstatically closed, the violin pressed to his stubbled chin, and his
broganned feet--with ankles innocent of socks--patting the spirited time
of his dancing measure.

Outside in the yard certain young folk who had been reared to hold
dancing ungodly indulged in those various "plays" as they cal