David thrust a hand beneath the wicket and the two young men shook hands, David flushed and embarrassed but smiling, the clerk grinning good-naturedly.
"Hey, don't forget your change," their new friend called as David and Sally were turning away. "Marriage licenses in this state cost only $1.50. If you've got any spare change, give it to Parson Greer."
"Oh, he was sweet!" Sally cried, between laughter and tears, as they walked out of the courthouse. "I thought I would faint when he asked us that awful question. But everything's all right now."
"We're as good as married," David assured her triumphantly, slapping his breast pocket and cocking his head to listen to the crackling of the marriage license. "Five blocks up Main street. Up must mean north--"
Within five minutes they were awaiting an answer to their ring at the door of the little white parsonage half hidden behind the rather shabby white frame building of the church.
A stout, rosy-cheeked, white-haired old lady opened the door and beamed upon them. "You're looking for the 'marrying parson,' aren't you?" she chuckled. "Well, now, it's a shame, children, but you'll have to wait quite a spell for him. He's conducting a funeral at the home of one of our parishioners, and won't be back until about half past eleven. I'm Mrs. Greer. Won't you come in and wait?"
Sally and David consulted each other with troubled, disappointed eyes. Sally wanted to cry out to David that she was afraid to wait two hours, afraid to wait even half an hour, but with Mrs. Greer beaming expectantly upon them she did not dare.
"Thank you, Mrs. Greer," David answered, his hand tightening warningly upon Sally's. "We'll wait."
As they followed Mrs. Greer into the stuffy, over-furnished little parlor, he managed to whisper reassuringly in Sally's ear: "Just two hours, darling. Nothing can happen."
During the two hours that they waited for the Reverend Mr. Greer, "the marrying parson," David and Sally sat stiffly side by side on a horsehair sofa, only their fingers touching shyly, listening to countless romances of eloping couples with which old Mrs. Greer regaled them in a kindly effort to help them pass the tedious time of waiting. Her daughter-in-law, widowed by the death of the only son of the family, trailed weakly in and out of the living room, her big, mournful black eyes devouring David's magnificent youth and vigor.