speech with Fawnie. Shortly he descended and put his head in at the parlour door. "It's all right," he said. "She will be down directly. Wanted to change her blouse. May I go in your room, Derek, old fellow—" It was his first use of the Christian name—"to slip my surplice on? Thanks, very much. I'll be with you directly. Nice little ring, isn't it? Narrow, yet heavy."
Derek dropped the ring stolidly into the pocket of his jacket. His eyes were on Jock, who had just come in from out of doors. He was panting jerkily, and Derek thought—"I must have him clipped. But by someone who knows. I don't want his fine coat all jagged up."
The Vicar had called Phœbe and Hugh McKay as witnesses, and they now came in, standing shyly at the far end of the room. They seemed overcome by the turn things had taken. Phœbe had exchanged her woolen slippers for shiny buttoned boots, which pinched her cruelly as she stood, balancing from one foot to the other.
Derek got slowly to his feet as Mr. Ramsey, like some impressive vessel in full sail, entered in his surplice. Fawnie, frightened, yet elated, followed him. She had once seen a wedding in the English Church at Brancepeth, and was determined to be as orthodox in her attire as that other bride married by Mr. Ramsey. Desperately eager to wear a veil, her eyes had fallen on the fine white net curtains Mrs. Machin had recently hung at the window. Quick as thought she had mounted a chair and unfastened the brass pins of one curtain. No fair bride, arranging the folds of the Brussels lace veil her grandmother had worn beneath a chaplet of pearls, could have been thrilled by a pride more delicious than that felt by Fawnie as she glimpsed the dark glow of her eyes and the pouting red of her lips behind the starched white net.
She looked so pretty as she came into the parlour, that
