The Elder looked into her illumined face, and, sighing, said:  “I can’t help prayin’ that the Lord’ll have errands for us that we can do together as long’s we live, Draxy.”

“Yes, dear,” said Draxy, “I pray for that too,” and then they were silent for some minutes.  Draxy spoke first.  “But Mr. Kinney, I never heard of anybody’s being married on Sunday—­did you?”

“No,” said the Elder, “I never did, but I’ve always thought it was the only day a man ought to be married on; I mean the most beautiful, the sweetest day.”

“Yes,” replied Draxy, a solemn and tender light spreading over her whole face, “it certainly is.  I wonder why nobody has ever thought so before.  But perhaps many people have,” she added with a merrier smile; “we don’t know everybody.”

Presently she looked up anxiously and said: 

“But do you think the people would like it?  Wouldn’t they think it very strange?”

The Elder hesitated.  He, too, had thought of this.

“Well, I tell you, Draxy, it’s just this way:  I’ve tried more than once to get some of them to come and be married on a Sunday in church, and they wouldn’t, just because they never heard of it before; and I’d like to have them see that I was in true earnest about it.  And they like you so well, Draxy, and you know they do all love me a great deal more’n I deserve, and I can’t help believing it will do them good all their lives by making them think more how solemn a thing a marriage ought to be, if they take it as I think they will; and I do think I know them well enough to be pretty sure.”

So it was settled that the marriage should take place after the morning sermon, immediately before the communion service.  When Reuben was told of this, his face expressed such absolute amazement that Draxy laughed outright, in spite of the deep solemnity of her feeling in regard to it.

“Why, father,” she said, “you couldn’t look more surprised if I had told you I was not to be married at all.”

“But Draxy, Draxy,” Reuben gasped, “who ever heard of such a thing?  What will folks say?”

“I don’t know that anybody ever heard of such a thing, father dear,” answered Draxy, “but I am not afraid of what the people will say.  They love Mr. Kinney, and he has always told them that Sunday was the day to be married on.  I shouldn’t wonder if every young man and young woman in the parish looked on it in a new and much holier light after this.  I know I began to as soon as the Elder talked about it, and it wouldn’t seem right to me now to be married on any other day,” and Draxy stooped and kissed her father’s forehead very tenderly.  There was a tenderness in Draxy’s manner now towards every one which can hardly be described in words.  It had a mixture of humility and of gracious bestowal in it, of entreaty and of benediction, which were ineffably beautiful and winning.  It is ever so when a woman, who is as strong as she is