of a train rushing onwards through a fog-blotted landscape, and of two
arms, warm and soft, cast up round his neck, and a trembling, passionate
voice, ever crying in his ears--

"While you live I will never marry another man."

That was what the bridegroom was thinking about.

As to the bride, she was debating to herself whether she should have the
body of her wedding-dress cut V or square when she left it with her
dressmaker to be altered into a dinner-dress.

Meanwhile the clergyman, who mumbled his words slightly, and whose
glasses kept on tumbling off his nose, waded through the several duties
of husbands towards their wives, and of wives towards their husbands, as
expounded by Scripture, in a monotonous undertone, until, to the great
relief of the weary guests, the ceremony at last came to an end.

Then the best man, Sir John, who stood behind his brother, looking, if
possible, more like a mute at a funeral even than the bridegroom himself,
stepped forward out of the shadow. The new-married couple went into the
vestry, followed by Sir John, his mother, and a select few, upon which
the door was closed. All the rest of the company then began to chatter
in audible whispers together; they fidgeted backwards and forwards,
from one pew to the other. There were jokes, and smiles, and nods, and
hand-shakings between the different members of the wedding party. All in
a low and decorous undertone, of course, but still there was a distinct
impression upon every one that all the religious part of the business
being well got over, they were free to be jolly about it now, and to
enjoy themselves as much as circumstances would admit of.