The City of Fire - Page 219/221

Over in the church the windows shone with light, and the bells were

ringing out the old sweet songs the villagers loved. Marilyn was at the

organ and Mark by her side. In the body of the church willing hands

were working, setting up the tall hemlocks that Tom and Jim had brought

in from the mountain, till the little church was fragrant and literally

lined with lacey beauty, reminding one of ancient worship in the woods.

Holly wreaths were hanging in the windows everywhere, and ropes of

ground pine and laurel festooned from every pillar and corner and peak

of roof.

Laurie Shafton had sent a great coffer of wonderful roses, and the

country girls were handling them with awe, banking them round the

pulpit, and trailing them over the rail of the little choir loft,

wonderful roses from another world, the world that Marilyn Severn might

have married into if she had chosen. And there sat Marilyn as

indifferent as if they were dandelions, praising the trees that

had been set up, delighting in their slender tops that rose like

miniature spires all round the wall, drawing in the sweetness of their

winter spicy breath, and never saying a word about the roses. "Roses?

Oh, yes, they look all right, Girls, just put them wherever you fancy.

I'll be suited. But aren't those trees too beautiful for words?"

When the work was done they trooped out noisily into the moonlight,

bright like day only with a beauty that was almost unearthly in its

radiance. The others went on down the street calling gay words back and

forth, but Mark and Marilyn lingered, bearing a wreath of laurel, and

stepping deep into the whiteness went over to the white piled mound

where they had laid Mrs. Carter's body to rest and Mark stooped down

and pressed the wreath down into the snow upon the top: "Dear little mother," he said brokenly, "She loved pretty things and I

meant to give her so many of them sometime to make up--"

"But she'll be glad--" said Marilyn softly, "We loved each other very

much--!"

"Yes, she'll be glad!" he answered. "She often tried to find out why I

never went to the parsonage any more. Poor little mother! That was her

deepest disappointment--! Yes, she'll be glad--!"

* * * * * When morning came it seemed as though the very glory of God was spread

forth on Sabbath Valley for display. There it lay, a shining gem of a

little white town, in the white velvet cup of the Valley, dazzling and

resplendent, the hills rising round about reflecting more brightness

and etched with fringes of fine branches each burdened with a line of

heavy furry white. Against the clear blue sky the bell tower rose, and

from its arches the bells rang forth a wedding song. Marilyn in her

white robes, with a long white veil of rare old lace handed down

through the generations, falling down the back and fastened about her

forehead, and with a slim little rope of pearls, also an heirloom, was

ringing her own wedding bells, with Mark by her side, while the

villagers gathered outside the door waiting for the wedding march to

begin before they came in.