He paused. Fanny looked delightedly in his face. “You were praising me—you! And what is a pity, brother?”
While she spoke, the sound of the joy-bells was heard near at hand.
“Hark!” said Vaudemont, forgetting her question—and almost gaily—“Hark!—I accept the omen. It is a marriage peal!”
He quickened his steps, and they reached the churchyard.
There was a crowd already assembled, and Vaudemont and Fanny paused; and, leaning over the little gate, looked on.
“Why are these people here, and why does the bell ring so merrily?”
“There is to be a wedding, Fanny.”
“I have heard of a wedding very often,” said Fanny, with a pretty look of puzzlement and doubt, “but I don’t know exactly what it means. Will you tell me?—and the bells, too!”
“Yes, Fanny, those bells toll but three times for man! The first time, when he comes into the world; the last time, when he leaves it; the time between when he takes to his side a partner in all the sorrows—in all the joys that yet remain to him; and who, even when the last bell announces his death to this earth, may yet, for ever and ever, be his partner in that world to come—that heaven, where they who are as innocent as you, Fanny, may hope to live and to love each other in a land in which there are no graves!”
“And this bell?”