Despite the peaceful, almost dormant life about them, the great event of their lives had just occurred, that which is at once a vast adventure and a simple testament of nature: they had been joined in marriage privately in the parish church of St.Michael's near by.

As Shoreham's voice came down the cotil, the two looked up, then passed on out of view.
But still the voice followed them, and the man looked down at the maid, repeating the refrain of the song: "Oh, give to me my gui-l'annee, Monseigneur, je vous prie!" The maid looked up at the man tenderly, almost devoutly.
"I have no Druid's mistletoe from the Chapel of St.George, but I will give you--stoop down, Philip," she added softly, "I will give you the first kiss I have ever given to any man." He stooped.

She kissed him on the forehead, then upon the lips.
"Guida, my wife," Philip said, and drew her to his breast.
"My Philip," she answered softly.

"Won't you say, 'Philip, my husband' ?" She shyly did as he asked in a voice no louder than a bee's.

She was only seventeen.
Presently she looked up at him with a look a little abashed, a little anxious, yet tender withal.
"Philip," she said, "I wonder what we will think of this day a year from now--no, don't frown, Philip," she added.