an agony with the cramp, it is so long since I have danced."



A MARRIAGE


The wedding of the farmer's daughter has taken place. We had hoped it
would have been in the little chapel of our house, but it seems some
special permission was necessary, and they applied for it too late. They
all said, "This is the Constitution. There would have been no difficulty
before!" the lower classes making the poor Constitution the scapegoat for
everything they don't like. So as it was impossible for us to climb up
to the church where the wedding was to be, we contented ourselves with
seeing the procession pass. It was not a very large one, for, it
requiring some activity to go up, all the old people remained at home. It
is not etiquette for the bride's mother to go, and no unmarried woman can
go to a wedding--I suppose for fear of its making her discontented with
her own position. The procession stopped at our door, for the bride to
receive our congratulations. She was dressed in a shot silk, with a
yellow handkerchief, and rows of a large gold chain. In the afternoon
they sent to request us to go there. On our arrival we found them
dancing out of doors, and a most melancholy affair it was. All the
bride's sisters were not to be recognised, they had cried so. The mother
sat in the house, and could not appear. And the bride was sobbing so,
she could hardly stand! The most melancholy spectacle of all to my mind
was, that the bridegroom was decidedly tipsy. He seemed rather affronted
at all the distress. We danced a Monferrino; I with the bridegroom; and
the bride crying the whole time. The company did their utmost to enliven
her by firing pistols, but without success, and at last they began a