Marcella,
laughing almost hysterically, whispered to Louis:
"Give them a shilling or something. They look so unhappy!"
"They're spying on me," he whispered, tossing them a coin which fell
among them and received the conductor's blessing.
Marcella and Louis sat on a bench in a Sunday-school classroom, looking
at "Rebecca at the Well" and a zoological picture of the millennium
while the sailor got married. Both were subdued suddenly. She found
herself thinking that, if ever she had children, she would never let
them go to such a dreary place as Sunday-school.
"Isn't this awful?" she whispered at last. "People ought to be married
on the tops of hills, or under trees. But it makes you feel solemn, and
sort of good, doesn't it--even such a fearful place?"
He nodded. They heard the sailor and the bride chattering suddenly and
loudly in the next little room and guessed that they were married. A
bent little woman--the chapel cleaner--came along and asked them where
their witnesses were. Her dark eyes looked piercingly among grey,
unbrushed hair; her hands were encrusted with much immersion in dirty
water.
"Witnesses?" said Louis anxiously.
"Two witnesses," she said inexorably. "Haven't you got 'ny?"
"We didn't know--" began Marcella. The old woman looked pleased.
"Well, I was wondering if yous 'ud have me an' my boss.
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