Page:Claire Ambler (1928).djvu/264

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dian. To these helplessly satirical measures, the clergyman slowly advanced, followed obscurely by the two sartorial vacancies, while from the rear, dressed as twins, eight embarrassingly self-conscious gentlemen were seen to be approaching rhythmically. After them, eight lovely young women, all in heliotrope and as rhythmic and self-conscious as the eight gentlemen twins, though more becomingly so, passed through stained shafts of light from a pointed window, seeming to float dazzlingly in many colours for a moment before they turned to heliotrope again and paced slowly to their appointed stations.

Then the bride came down the aisle, alone. She walked with her head a little advanced but her face uplifted; and about her grave and tender eyes, and upon her lips, there appeared the faintest foreshadowings of an ineffable smile. Through the fine lace of her veil, there were glints of her fair hair like gold seen in a mist: never had she been so graceful; never had she looked so lovely. And when she passed through the coloured light of the great window, and her bridal white became a drifting rosiness in aureoles of amber and softest blue, a breathed "Ah!" of pleasure was multitudinous upon the air. For she seemed then just such a glimpsed vision of angelic beauty, wistful yet