A whisper , communicated from those who stood nearest the windows , now spread through the church : a hearse with a train of several coaches was creeping along the street , conveying some dead man to the churchyard , while the bride awaited a living one at the altar . Immediately after , the footsteps of the bridegroom and his friends were heard at the door . The widow looked down the aisle and clenched the arm of one of her bridemaids in her bony hand with such unconscious violence that the fair girl trembled . `` You frighten me , my dear madam , '' cried she . `` For heaven 's sake , what is the matter ? '' `` Nothing , my dear -- nothing , '' said the widow ; then , whispering close to her ear , `` There is a foolish fancy that I can not get rid of . I am expecting my bridegroom to come into the church with my two first husbands for groomsmen . '' `` Look ! look ! '' screamed the bridemaid . `` What is here ? The funeral ! '' As she spoke a dark procession paced into the church . First came an old man and woman , like chief mourners at a funeral , attired from head to foot in the deepest black , all but their pale features and hoary hair , he leaning on a staff and supporting her decrepit form with his nerveless arm . Behind appeared another and another pair , as aged , as black and mournful as the first . As they drew near the widow recognized in every face some trait of former friends long forgotten , but now returning as if from their old graves to warn her to prepare a shroud , or , with purpose almost as unwelcome , to exhibit their wrinkles and infirmity and claim her as their companion by the tokens of her own decay . Many a merry night had she danced with them in youth , and now in joyless age she felt that some withered partner should request her hand and all unite in a dance of death to the music of the funeral-bell . While these aged mourners were passing up the aisle it was observed that from pew to pew the spectators shuddered with irrepressible awe as some object hitherto concealed by the intervening figures came full in sight . Many turned away their faces ; others kept a fixed and rigid stare , and a young girl giggled hysterically and fainted with the laughter on her lips . When the spectral procession approached the altar , each couple separated and slowly diverged , till in the centre appeared a form that had been worthily ushered in with all this gloomy pomp , the death-knell and the funeral .
It was the bridegroom XXXXX his shroud .
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