"Isn't she beautiful, Margret?" said the maids, whereupon Aunt Margret, whose eyes were glistening behind her spectacles, said:
"Talk about Helga--tut!"
Then the cathedral bells began to ring and a hush fell on everybody. Thora went slowly down-stairs and found her father (looking taller than ever in a new silk hat) waiting for her in the hall, and Silvertop standing ready in the street, with a side-saddle of red plush and gilt. There were a few jests, a few laughs, a few furtive tears, and then they started off. The snow underfoot was as dry and soft as flour, and it was with difficulty that the pony could be made to walk sedately.
From the moment they reached the cathedral it was all like a dream to Thora, a beautiful day-dream, such as she had dreamt sometimes when she thought she was dead and her happy soul was entering heaven.
The bridesmaids were waiting in the porch--Helga looking wondrously beautiful in an English dress, and two former school-fellows in Iceland costume.
Thora, who was moving as in a vision, felt somebody taking off her plush cloak, and then the bells stopped and the organ began. At the next moment the choir was singing a hymn--the usual hymn, "When God the Father led the first of brides"--and then she was going up the aisle, leaning on her father's arm.
She had never seen so many faces since the day she was confirmed. They seemed to move past her, and they made her almost dizzy. She remembered how at other weddings the congregation had watched for the bride and looked at her as if she had been a supernatural thing. "She's coming!" "Here she comes!" She herself was the bride now, and the people were craning their necks to see her.
Thora could feel their smiling faces, and she knew that her own face was smiling. She could hear what the people were saying as she passed them: "Dear Thora!" "How lovely she looks!" "I'm satisfied now, and I don't care if I go--I only wanted to see how Thora looked in the kirtle." And meanwhile the voices of the choir were coming down from the gallery as from the sky and floating round and round her.
At the top of the nave Oscar was waiting--so perfectly dressed, so handsome, so noble-looking--with a fair young man on his right hand, and on his left the Governor, very solemn and stately with his iron-grey hair and beard.
The hymn came to an end, the organ died down, and Thora found herself standing by Oscar's side at the foot of the chancel steps, with the old Bishop in his pleated black gown and white ruff at the top of them. There was a rustle behind her, then there was silence, and the Bishop began to speak.