"And who gives this woman in marriage?" the minister asked solemnly,
following the primitive formula which symbolizes that the woman is to be
made over from one family to another as a perpetual possession. She gave
herself of course! The words were but an outgrown form...

There was the necessary pause while the Colonel came forward, and taking
his daughter's hand from which the glove had been carefully turned back,
laid it gently in the minister's large palm. The father's lips twitched,
and she knew he was feeling the solemnity of his act, that he was
relinquishing a part of himself to another. Their marriage--her father's
and mother's--had been happy,--oh, very peaceful! And yet--hers must be
different, must strike deeper. For the first time she raised her shining
eyes to the man at her side...

"I, John, take thee Isabelle for my wedded wife, to have and to hold ... in
sickness and in health ... until death us do part ... and hereby I plight
thee my troth."

Those old words, heard so many times, which heretofore had echoed without
meaning to her,--she had vaguely thought them beautiful,--now came
freighted with sudden meaning, while from out the dreamlike space around
sounded the firm tones of the man at her side repeating slowly, with grave
pauses, word by word, the marriage oath. "I, John, take thee Isabelle,"
that voice was saying, and she knew that the man who spoke these words in
his calm, grave manner was the one she had chosen, to whom she had willed
to give herself for all time,--presently she would say it also,--for
always, always, "until death us do part." He was promising it with tranquil
assurance,--fidelity, the eternal bond, throughout the unknown years, out
of the known present. "And hereby I plight thee my troth." Without a tremor
the man's assured voice registered the oath--before God and man.