Then the party took leave of their pastor, and went out by the back door to enter their carriage.
Abel Force handed his wife, his eldest daughter and their guest into the first carriage, which he entered after them, the party of four filling the interior.
Le handed Miss Meeke and his two young cousins into the second carriage, and followed them.
And the little procession left the churchyard, and took their way through the grove to the turnpike road leading to Mondreer.
Meanwhile, the whole congregation of wedding guests lingered in the church, and gathered into groups to talk over the strange events that had just happened before their eyes.
They were not disappointed, those wedding guests. Far from that. They had got so much more than they expected! They had not only seen the bride, the bridegroom, the bridesmaids, the bride’s mother, and all their dresses, which had been made in New York, after the latest fashion; they had not only seen the whole marriage ceremony performed, and noted the demeanor of every one concerned in it, from the rector who read the rites to the smallest bridesmaid who held the glove; they had not only seen all these pageantries which they had expected to see, but they had seen a great deal more than they had bargained for. They had witnessed the performance of a startling drama in real life—the arrest of a marriage by the sudden appearance of the would-be bridegroom’s wife.
Now, they had got a great deal more than they had looked for, besides having something to talk about all the rest of their lives.
They could not leave the church, though the dinner hour was at hand, and most of them had far to go to reach their own homes.
They collected in little crowds to discuss the interruption.
“Who was the woman, did anybody know? When did she come to the neighborhood? Had any one seen or heard of her before to-day?”