Whether the edifice now standing on the same site be the identical one to which she referred I am not antiquarian enough to know , nor would it be worth while to correct myself , perhaps , of an agreeable error by reading the date of its erection on the tablet over the door . It is a stately church surrounded by an enclosure of the loveliest green , within which appear urns , pillars , obelisks , and other forms of monumental marble , the tributes of private affection or more splendid memorials of historic dust . With such a place , though the tumult of the city rolls beneath its tower , one would be willing to connect some legendary interest . The marriage might be considered as the result of an early engagement , though there had been two intermediate weddings on the lady 's part and forty years of celibacy on that of the gentleman . At sixty-five Mr. Ellenwood was a shy but not quite a secluded man ; selfish , like all men who brood over their own hearts , yet manifesting on rare occasions a vein of generous sentiment ; a scholar throughout life , though always an indolent one , because his studies had no definite object either of public advantage or personal ambition ; a gentleman , high-bred and fastidiously delicate , yet sometimes requiring a considerable relaxation in his behalf of the common rules of society . In truth , there were so many anomalies in his character , and , though shrinking with diseased sensibility from public notice , it had been his fatality so often to become the topic of the day by some wild eccentricity of conduct , that people searched his lineage for a hereditary taint of insanity . But there was no need of this . His caprices had their origin in a mind that lacked the support of an engrossing purpose , and in feelings that preyed upon themselves for want of other food . If he were mad , it was the consequence , and not the cause , of an aimless and abortive life . The widow was as complete a contrast to her third bridegroom in everything but age as can well be conceived . Compelled to relinquish her first engagement , she had been united to a man of twice her own years , to whom she became an exemplary wife , and by whose death she was left in possession of a splendid fortune . A Southern gentleman considerably younger than herself succeeded to her hand and carried her to Charleston , where after many uncomfortable years she found herself again a widow . It would have been singular if any uncommon delicacy of feeling had survived through such a life as Mrs. Dabney 's ; it could not but be crushed and killed by her early disappointment , the cold duty of her first marriage , the dislocation of the heart 's principles consequent on a second union , and the unkindness of her Southern husband , which had inevitably driven her to connect the idea of his death with that of her comfort . To be brief , she was that wisest but unloveliest variety of woman , a philosopher , bearing troubles of the heart with equanimity , dispensing with all that should have been her happiness and making the best of what remained . Sage in most matters , the widow was perhaps the more amiable for the one frailty that made her ridiculous . Being childless , she could not remain beautiful by proxy in the person of a daughter ; she therefore refused to grow old and ugly on any consideration ; she struggled with Time , and held fast her roses in spite of him , till the venerable thief appeared to have relinquished the spoil as not worth the trouble of acquiring it . The approaching marriage of this woman of the world with such an unworldly man as Mr. Ellenwood was announced soon after Mrs. Dabney 's return to her native city . Superficial observers , and deeper ones , seemed to concur in supposing that the lady must have borne no inactive part in arranging the affair ; there were considerations of expediency which she would be far more likely to appreciate than Mr. Ellenwood , and there was just the specious phantom of sentiment and romance in this late union of two early lovers which sometimes makes a fool of a woman who has lost her true feelings among the accidents of life . All the wonder was how the gentleman , with his lack of worldly wisdom and agonizing consciousness of ridicule , could have been induced to take a measure at once so prudent and so laughable . But while people talked the wedding-day arrived .
The ceremony was to be solemnized according XXXXX the Episcopalian forms and in open church , with a degree of publicity that attracted many spectators , who occupied the front seats of the galleries and the pews near the altar and along the broad aisle .
if in like on than that though through to while