CHAPTER XIV
The marriage of Bertie Keynes and Amelie was to be celebrated at New York towards the end of February, and bade fair to be the comble up to date (not even excepting the famous pearl fishery) of Mrs. Palmer's social successes. It was to take place in St. Luke's Church, Fifth Avenue, and for days beforehand the ordinary services had been altogether suspended, because the church had to be made fit to be the theatre of the ceremony, and a perfect army of furniture-men, upholsterers, carpenters, and plumbers occupied it. The ordinary square-backed wooden pews were removed from the body of the church, which was carpeted from wall to wall with purple felt, and rows of fauteuils in scarlet morocco, like the stalls of an opera-house, occupied their places. To complete the resemblance, each chair was marked with its particular number in its own row, and the occupants, who gave up their tickets at the church door, retaining only the tallies, were shown to their places, where they found in each chair a copy of the service printed on vellum and bound by Riviére, by scarlet-coated footmen. Similarly, the free seats in the gallery were cleared out in order to make room for the very magnificent orchestra, which beguiled the hours of waiting for the guests with inspiriting and purely secular pieces, and during the choral part of the service accompanied the choir.
In front of the altar, where the actual ceremony would
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