Lloyd found herself seated between Mary Ware and Alex Shelby.

Leaning forward to look along the bench, she found that Bernice came next in order to Alex, then Lieutenant Stanley and Allison, Doctor Bradford and Betty.
She had merely said good evening to Alex Shelby when they met at The Beeches, and, although positions in the procession through the woods had shifted constantly, it had happened she had not been near enough to talk with him.

Now, with only Mary Ware to claim her attention, they naturally fell into conversation.

It was only in whispers, for the audience was assembling rapidly, and the usher had opened the organ in token that the service was about to begin.
There had been an attempt to decorate for the occasion.

Friends of the bride had resurrected both the Christmas and Easter mottoes, so that the wall behind the pulpit bore in tall, white cotton letters, on a background of cedar, the words, "Peace on Earth, Good Will to Men." Fresh cedar had been substituted for the yellowed branches left over from the previous Christmas, and fresh diamond dust sprinkled over the grimy cotton to give it its pristine sparkle of Yule-tide frost.
"An appropriate motto for a wedding," whispered Alex Shelby to Lloyd.
Only his eyes laughed.