The bell continued to swing, strike, and vibrate, with
the same doleful regularity as when a corpse is on its way to the
tomb.
"My young friends here have their nerves a little shaken," said the
widow, with a smile, to the clergyman at the altar. "But so many
weddings have been ushered in with the merriest peal of the bells, and
yet turned out unhappily, that I shall hope for better fortune under
such different auspices."
"Madam," answered the rector, in great perplexity, "this strange
occurrence brings to my mind a marriage sermon of the famous Bishop
Taylor, wherein he mingles so many thoughts of mortality and future
wo, that, to speak somewhat after his own rich style, he seems to hang
the bridal chamber in black, and cut the wedding garment out of a
coffin pall. And it has been the custom of divers nations to infuse
something of sadness into their marriage ceremonies, so to keep
death in mind while contracting that engagement which is life's
chiefest business. Thus we may draw a sad but profitable moral from
this funeral knell."
But, though the clergyman might have given his moral even a
keener point, he did not fail to dispatch an attendant to inquire into
the mystery, and stop those sounds, so dismally appropriate to such
a marriage.
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