steaming in the wet. The rain pattered monotonously on the pavement
outside. While Mr. Sherwin exchanged remarks on the weather with the
clerk, (a tall, lean man, arrayed in a black gown), I sat silent, near
Mrs. Sherwin and Margaret, looking with mechanical attention at the
white surplices which hung before me in a half-opened cupboard--at the
bottle of water and tumbler, and the long-shaped books, bound in brown
leather, which were on the table. I was incapable of
speaking--incapable even of thinking--during that interval of
expectation.

At length the clergyman arrived, and we went into the church--the
church, with its desolate array of empty pews, and its chill, heavy,
week-day atmosphere. As we ranged ourselves round the altar, a
confusion overspread all my faculties. My sense of the place I was in,
and even of the ceremony in which I took part, grew more and more
vague and doubtful every minute. My attention wandered throughout the
whole service. I stammered and made mistakes in uttering the
responses. Once or twice I detected myself in feeling impatient at the
slow progress of the ceremony--it seemed to be doubly, trebly longer
than its usual length. Mixed up with this impression was another, wild
and monstrous as if it had been produced by a dream--an impression
that my father had discovered my secret, and was watching me from some
hidden place in the church; watching through the service, to denounce
and abandon me publicly at the end. This morbid fancy grew and grew on
me until the termination of the ceremony, until we had left the church
and returned to the vestry once more.

The fees were paid; we wrote our names in the books and on the
certificate; the clergyman quietly wished me happiness; the clerk
solemnly imitated him; the pew-opener smiled and curtseyed; Mr.