The ceremony began. It continued amid a breathless silence, unbroken except by the voices of the officiating ministers and responses of the kneeling pair before them, and the short reply of the “church father” in bestowing “this woman” upon “this man.”
After the benediction was pronounced friends crowded around the newly wedded young pair with congratulations that were not merely conventional, but earnest, heartfelt.
Mike crept out of his pew, glided easily through the crowd, and stood before his sister and brother-in-law, mute, unable to speak, still looking like a very shy schoolboy at his college exhibition.
But Ran seized his hand and shook it heartily, and held it fast while he said:
“Mike—dear boy—we were always brothers in heart, and now we are brothers in reality! Are you not going to embrace your sister? She is not less your sister because she is my wife, but more so, for she has married your bosom’s everlasting brother.”
Mike then turned to Judy, who opened her arms and folded him to her heart in a warm embrace.
Longman and Dandy hung back for a little while, and then the old man stood up and said:
“I can’t stand it at all, at all! Sure, I must go and spake to the darlints!”
And out of the pew he went, and up to the chancel, where “fine” friends were still surrounding the young pair.
They made way for the eager old man as he pushed through the group and confronted Ran and Judy, offering each a hand and crying with emotion: