'Ah. They'm so drodsome.'
Edward pointed to a laburnum-tree which had rent a tomb, and now waved above it.
'See,' he said. 'Out of the grave and gate of death—'
'Ah! But her as went in hanna come out. On'y a new tree. I'll be bound she wanted to come out.'
At this moment Edward's friend, who was to marry them, arrived.
'Now I shall go and wait for you to come,' Edward whispered.
Waiting in the dim chapel, with its whitewashed walls and few leaded windows half covered with ivy, his mind was clear of all thoughts but unselfish ones.
His mother, trailing purple, came in, and thought how like a sacred picture he looked; this, for her, was superlative praise. Martha's brother was there, ringing the one bell, which gave such a small fugitive sound that it made the white chapel seem like a tinkling bell-wether lost on the hills.
Mr. James was there, and several of the congregation, and Martha, with her best dress hastily donned over her print, and a hat of which her brother said 'it 'ud draw tears from an egg.'
Mr. James' daughter played a voluntary, in the midst of which an altercation was heard outside.