"That's the idea," said Jonah, greatly relieved. He understood vaguely
that weddings were expensive affairs, and he had thirty shillings in his
pocket.

"Don't tell me that people are married that goes ter the Registry Office!"
cried Mrs Yabsley. "They only git a licence to 'ave a family. I know all
about them. Yer sign a piece of paper, an' then the bloke tells yer ye're
married. 'Ow does 'e know ye're married? 'E ain't a parson. I was
married in a church, an' my marriage is as good now as ever it was. Just
yous leave it to me, an' I'll fix yez up."

Ever since Ada was a child, Mrs Yabsley had speculated on her marriage,
when all the street would turn out to the wedding. And now, after years
of planning and waiting, she was to be married on the quiet, for there was
nothing to boast about.

"Well, it's no use cryin' over skimmed milk," she reflected, adapting the
proverb to her needs.

But she clung with obstinacy to a marriage in a church, convinced that
none other was genuine. And casting about in her mind for a parson who
would marry them without fuss or expense, she remembered Trinity Church,
and the thing was done.

Canon Vaughan, the new rector of Trinity Church, had brought some strange
ideas from London, where he had worked in the slums. He had founded a
workman's club, and smoked his pipe with the members; formed a brigade of
newsboys and riff-raff, and taught them elementary morality with the aid
of boxing-gloves; and offended his congregation by treating the poor with