On they went , however , and had glittered along about a third of the aisle , when another stroke of the bell seemed to fill the church with a visible gloom , dimming and obscuring the bright-pageant till it shone forth again as from a mist . This time the party wavered , stopped and huddled closer together , while a slight scream was heard from some of the ladies and a confused whispering among the gentlemen . Thus tossing to and fro , they might have been fancifully compared to a splendid bunch of flowers suddenly shaken by a puff of wind which threatened to scatter the leaves of an old brown , withered rose on the same stalk with two dewy buds , such being the emblem of the widow between her fair young bridemaids . But her heroism was admirable . She had started with an irrepressible shudder , as if the stroke of the bell had fallen directly on her heart ; then , recovering herself , while her attendants were yet in dismay , she took the lead and paced calmly up the aisle . The bell continued to swing , strike and vibrate with the same doleful regularity as when a corpse is on its way to the tomb . `` My young friends here have their nerves a little shaken , '' said the widow , with a smile , to the clergyman at the altar . `` But so many weddings have been ushered in with the merriest peal of the bells , and yet turned out unhappily , that I shall hope for better fortune under such different auspices . '' `` Madam , '' answered the rector , in great perplexity , `` this strange occurrence brings to my mind a marriage-sermon of the famous Bishop Taylor wherein he mingles so many thoughts of mortality and future woe that , to speak somewhat after his own rich style , he seems to hang the bridal-chamber in black and cut the wedding-garment out of a coffin-pall . And it has been the custom of divers nations to infuse something of sadness into their marriage ceremonies , so to keep death in mind while contracting that engagement which is life 's chiefest business . Thus we may draw a sad but profitable moral from this funeral-knell . '' But , though the clergyman might have given his moral even a keener point , he did not fail to despatch an attendant to inquire into the mystery and stop those sounds so dismally appropriate to such a marriage . A brief space elapsed , during which the silence was broken only by whispers and a few suppressed titterings among the wedding-party and the spectators , who after the first shock were disposed to draw an ill-natured merriment from the affair . The young have less charity for aged follies than the old for those of youth . The widow 's glance was observed to wander for an instant toward a window of the church , as if searching for the time-worn marble that she had dedicated to her first husband ; then her eyelids dropped over their faded orbs and her thoughts were drawn irresistibly to another grave . Two buried men with a voice at her ear and a cry afar off were calling her to lie down beside them . Perhaps , with momentary truth of feeling , she thought how much happier had been her fate if , after years of bliss , the bell were now tolling for her funeral and she were followed to the grave by the old affection of her earliest lover , long her husband . But why had she returned to him when their cold hearts shrank from each other 's embrace ? Still the death-bell tolled so mournfully that the sunshine seemed to fade in the air . 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 XXXXX the bridegroom and his friends were heard at the door .
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