“They will now bow to the audience,” and they faced the people and bowed deeply, and everybody in that congregation rose and returned the salutation.
“And now the audience will bow to the bride and bridegroom,” and with right good will the congregation, Chinese and the two or three foreigners, rose and saluted the newly married couple, also I presume in the new style.
It was over, and to the strains of the wedding march they left the church, actually together, by way of the women's entrance. But the bride was not on the groom's arm. That would not have been in accord with Chinese ideas. The bridegroom marched a little ahead, propelled forward by his friend, as if he had no means of volition of his own—again I thought of “William,” long since departed and forgotten till this moment—and behind came the new wife, thrust forward in the same manner, still with her eyes on the floor and every muscle stiff as if she too had been a doll.
“All the world loves a lover,” but in China, the land of ceremonies, there are no lovers. This man had gone further than most men in the wooing of his wife, and they were beginning life together with very fair chances of success. But even so the girl might not hope for a home of her own.
That would have been most unseemly. The evangelist laundryman had not a mother, but his only sister was taking the place of mother-in-law, and he and his bride would live with her and her husband.
