“We’re as good as married,” David assured her triumphantly, slapping his breast pocket and cocking his head to listen to the crackling of the marriage license. “Five blocks up Main street. Up must mean north—”
Within five minutes they were awaiting an answer to their ring at the door of the little white parsonage half hidden behind the rather shabby white frame building of the church.
A stout, rosy-cheeked, white-haired old lady opened the door and beamed upon them. “You’re looking for the ‘marrying parson,’ aren’t you?” she chuckled. “Well, now, it’s a shame, children, but you’ll have to wait quite a spell for him. He’s conducting a funeral at the home of one of our parishioners, and won’t be back until about half past eleven. I’m Mrs. Greer. Won’t you come in and wait?”
Sally and David consulted each other with troubled, disappointed eyes. Sally wanted to cry out to David that she was afraid to wait two hours, afraid to wait even half an hour, but with Mrs. Greer beaming expectantly upon them she did not dare.
“Thank you, Mrs. Greer,” David answered, his hand tightening warningly upon Sally’s. “We’ll wait.”
As they followed Mrs. Greer into the stuffy, over-furnished little parlor, he managed to whisper reassuringly in Sally’s ear: “Just two hours, darling. Nothing can happen.”
But Sally was shaking with fright—
CHAPTER XV
During the two hours that they waited for the Reverend Mr. Greer, “the marrying parson,” David and Sally sat stiffly side by side on a horsehair sofa, only their fingers touching shyly, listening to countless romances of eloping couples with which old Mrs. Greer regaled them in a kindly effort to help them pass the tedious time of waiting. Her daughter-in-law, widowed by the death of the only son of the family, trailed weakly in and out of the living room, her big, mournful black eyes devouring David’s magnificent youth and vigor.
“You remind her of Sonny Bob,” Mrs. Greer leaned forward in her arm chair to whisper to David. “Killed in the war he was, and Cora just can’t become reconciled. Seems like the only pleasure she gets out of life now is acting as witness for weddings. And I must say she cries as beautiful and sweet as any bride’s mother could. Some of the eloping brides appreciate it and some don’t, but Cora means well. Once, I recollect, she spoiled a wedding. It seems that the girl’s mother was dead set against this boy, and when Cora started to cry, just like a mother—”