laugh for very joy. As the newly-made man and wife left the church,
old-world wedding music sounded strangely in Mavis' ears. The best
part of a year passed. A little group stood about the font, where
the life, that love had called into being, was purged of taint of
sin by holy church.

Next, martial music rent the air; a venerable ecclesiastic blessed
the arms and aims of a goodly company of stout-hearted men. When the
echoes of the martial music had died away, the fane was deserted,
save for one lone woman, who offered up continual supplication for
her absent lord.

Cries and lamentations fell on Mavis' ears: to the music of a
military march, the brave young knight was borne to burial. Soon,
the moonlight fell upon the church's first monument, beside which
the tearless and kneeling figure of a woman often prayed. It was not
so very long before the widow was carried to rest beside her
husband; it seemed but little longer when the offspring of her love
stood before the altar with the bride of his choice.

The foregoing scenes were many times repeated, as, thus, life moved
down the centuries, differing not at all but for changes in
personality and dress. The church looked on, unmoved, unaltered,
save for signs of age and an increasing number of memorials raised
to the dead. The procession of life began by fascinating and ended
by paining Mavis.

It was as if she were the spectator of a crowd in which her heart
ached to mix, despite the distressing penalties of pain to which
those she envied were, at all times, subject. It was as if she were