to come by rail-road from various parts of the country, and to come like
adorable recruits enlisted by a sergeant not present; for, on arriving
at the Veneering depot, they are in a barrack of strangers.

So, Twemlow goes home to Duke Street, St James's, to take a plate of
mutton broth with a chop in it, and a look at the marriage-service, in
order that he may cut in at the right place to-morrow; and he is low,
and feels it dull over the livery stable-yard, and is distinctly aware
of a dint in his heart, made by the most adorable of the adorable
bridesmaids. For, the poor little harmless gentleman once had his fancy,
like the rest of us, and she didn't answer (as she often does not),
and he thinks the adorable bridesmaid is like the fancy as she was then
(which she is not at all), and that if the fancy had not married some
one else for money, but had married him for love, he and she would
have been happy (which they wouldn't have been), and that she has a
tenderness for him still (whereas her toughness is a proverb). Brooding
over the fire, with his dried little head in his dried little hands,
and his dried little elbows on his dried little knees, Twemlow is
melancholy. 'No Adorable to bear me company here!' thinks he. 'No
Adorable at the club! A waste, a waste, a waste, my Twemlow!' And so
drops asleep, and has galvanic starts all over him.

Betimes next morning, that horrible old Lady Tippins (relict of the late
Sir Thomas Tippins, knighted in mistake for somebody else by His
Majesty King George the Third, who, while performing the ceremony, was
graciously pleased to observe, 'What, what, what? Who, who, who?
Why, why, why?') begins to be dyed and varnished for the interesting
occasion. She has a reputation for giving smart accounts of things, and
she must be at these people's early, my dear, to lose nothing of the
fun. Whereabout in the bonnet and drapery announced by her name, any