"And God bless you for it," replied the minister, fervently. As he spoke the church-bell rang out on the warm spring air. He turned to Barbara and took her hand. "Barbara, dear, we have but a few moments—where shall it be?"
"Here," she said, "where the sun is brightest."
Barbara and Will, with clasped hands, stood near a window where the morning light lit up their bright young faces—faces filled with love and hope. The simple service—a promise and a prayer—was soon over. The tears were streaming down Mrs. Flint's cheeks as she greeted her son and his bride. Mrs. Stout's eyes, too, were moist, though she would have denied it. The church-bell was tolling. Mr. Flint had another duty to perform, and was impatiently eager to be about it.
"Come," he said, "we must be going."
"Do give us time to get straightened out," replied Mrs. Stout. "Us women folks can't go to a weddin' and then rush off to church in a minute, can we, Mis' Flint?"
Poor Mrs. Flint, she was so excited that, without Mrs. Stout's assistance, she could not get her bonnet on straight. In a few minutes they were ready, however, and left the house together on their way across the road to the church.
As Barbara and Will, followed by Mrs. Flint and Mrs. Stout, walked up the aisle, every eye in the crowded church was fixed upon them. Were they married? No one knew. Sam Billings had told all that he knew, according to Will's instructions, but none were the wiser for all that.
That part of the service preceding the sermon was rushed, and the minister as well as the congregation assisted in the process. When the last note of the hymn had died away, and the rustling of the people sitting and making themselves comfortable had ceased, Mr. Flint left his seat, advanced quickly to the desk, and opened the large Bible. He turned the pages for a moment, and then looked up and repeated rather than read from the Book of Proverbs: "Be not a witness against thy neighbour without cause; and deceive not with thy lips." Then he closed the book and walked slowly to the front of the platform.
"Friends," he began, in a quiet tone, so unlike his former manner that all wondered at it, "for a time God saw fit to take me from you. It is appropriate that at this season of the year, when our part of the world is bursting forth into joyous, beautiful life, that He should send back, not the man you once knew, but another, one whose life is beginning anew like nature." He continued at length on the "new life" that had come to him. Suddenly he paused, and when he spoke again quoted these words: "A good name is to be chosen rather than great riches." He moved about nervously for a moment before continuing. "A few weeks ago the innocent act of a good woman caused her to be reviled, shunned, and turned away from our doors. Of those who so harmed her I was the chief offender. Every word, every act, was a cruel thrust, the torture of which none of us can wholly appreciate. And then she came when disease—the most loathsome—had stricken me, when all others shunned even the house in which I lay, she came and brought me back to life. And then—then she saved my soul!" The minister's face was pale; he made no gestures; he did not raise his voice; but his earnestness and remorse were unmistakable. "And my son," he continued, "he whom I should have guided, I have wronged by living a narrow, loveless life." Thus, for an hour he talked about the "new life," love, and remorse. But his closing words interested many of his congregation more than those that had preceded them.