"I don't feel sure about the hair," said the Major, still, as he supposed, confidentially. "I don't remember that I brushed it."
Madam Carroll took a brush from the table and gently smoothed the thin white locks.
"That is better," he murmured. "And my clean white silk handkerchief?"
"It is by your side, close to your hand."
He thought for a moment. "I ought to have a flower for my button-hole, oughtn't I?" he added, looking about the room with his darkened eyes as if to find one.
Sara went to the window and broke off a spray of apple-blossoms from the tree outside. His wife gave it to him, and he tried to put it into the button-hole of his dressing-gown; she did it for him, and then he was content. "I am ready now," he said, folding his hands.
Frederick Owen came forward; he wore his white robes of office. "Dearly beloved, we are gathered together here in the sight of God to join together this man and this woman in holy matrimony," he read, standing close to the Major, so that he could hear.
The Major listened with serenity; and of his own accord, when the time came, he answered, "I will."
When the longer answer was reached, Owen repeated it first, then Madam Carroll repeated it to the Major, as he could hear her voice more easily. "I, Scarborough, take thee, Marion, to my wedded wife, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, till death us do part, according to God's holy ordinance; and thereto I plight thee my troth," said the Major, in his indistinct tones, following her word by word, and holding the hand she had placed in his.
Then the wife drew off her own wedding-ring, and guided his feeble fingers to put it back in its place again. "With this ring I thee wed," said the Major, repeating after her in a voice that was growing tired.