The Flower of May [antikvár]

CHAPTER ONELILIAN'S WEDDINGLilian's wedding went without a hitch. This is an unusual fact to set down of any wedding. But, as Lilian's father was fussy and a shade exuberant; as Lilian's mother often looked abstracted; as Lilian was their eldest child and the first to go to the altar; as the younger children knew nothing about weddings; and as the wedding guests were mixed and lively of temperament, the smooth procedure of the day was more than customarily remarkable.The Morrows' parish church, St. Mary's, Haddington Road, Dublin, lacks beauty, and therefore adds no fortuitous gift to such a ceremony as a wedding. But neither Lilian nor her father, as they walked up the aisle together, considered this.For Joseph Morrow, whatever by the accident of habit was added to the progress of his life became thereby decorated. He had been baptised, confirmed and married in St. Mary's Church; he had brought each of his six children to be christened there; he had attended its eleven o'clock Mass on almost every Sunday of fifty years; he confessed his sins there once a month, made his Easter duty there, and paid his dues to its priests. He had given it some altar vessels in memory of his brother. So for him it was an endowed place; and he led Lilian to its Communion rails to give her to Michael O'Connor, the eldest son of his old friend Sam O'Connor, with his sense of proprietorship in her and his sense of occasion happily enlarged by the rifted story of himself that the church contained. And Lilian, in bridal white, clouded in lace and silk and orange-blossoms, carried her beauty tranquilly to the sanctuary gate, and was aware that it was enough for the hour and the event.The occupants of the front left-hand pewsthe Morrows let them be called, whatever the names acquired by marriageOCP/82.^-A*O