A brief space elapsed, during which the silence was broken
only by whispers, and a few suppressed titterings, among the wedding
party and the spectators, who, after the first shock, were disposed to
draw an ill-natured merriment from the affair. The young have less
charity for aged follies than the old for those of youth. The
widow's glance was observed to wander, for an instant, towards a
window of the church, as if searching for the time-worn marble that
she had dedicated to her first husband; then her eyelids dropped
over their faded orbs, and her thoughts were drawn irresistibly to
another grave. Two buried men, with a voice at her ear, and a cry afar
off, were calling her to lie down beside them. Perhaps, with momentary
truth of feeling, she thought how much happier had been her fate,
if, after years of bliss, the bell were now tolling for her funeral,
and she were followed to the grave by the old affection of her
earliest lover, long her husband. But why had she returned to him,
when their cold hearts shrank from each other's embrace?
Still the death-bell tolled so mournfully, that the sunshine seemed
to fade in the air.
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