The Baddington Peerage: who won, and who wore it. A story of the best and worst society

Front matter

His wife. All her beauty was gone."— P. 118. BY GEORGE AUGUSTUS SALA Fur it was murder." — P. 5 NEW EDITION LONDON JOHN MAXWELL & CO., 122, FLEET STREET Rights of Translation are reserved._ Mfya Man an& tobe Wiort it BY GEORGE AUGUSTUS SALA LONDON JOHN MAXWELL AND COMPANY 122 FLEET STREET II DCCC LXV [All rifjhU reserved.-] LONDON : ROBSON AND SON, GREAT NORTHERN PRINTING WORKS, TANCRAS ROAD, N.W. CONTENTS. CHAP. PA(}E I. The Morning 1 II, '• Watchman — what of the Night V . . 17 III. The Night cometh 24 IV. Introduces a Gentleman in Difficulties . 38 V. The Night 48 VI. Captain Pollyblank sees it all ... 58 VII. The Morning after C5 VIII. In which Captain Pollyblank makes Arrangements to increase his Capital . 73 IX. " Crowner's 'quest" 80 X. The turning to a Long Lane ... 87 XI. In which the History goes back Twenty Years 97 XII.

Mrs. Falcon at Home 107 XIII. In which the History, as far as one of its personages is concerned, stops altogether 113 XIV. Times, Scenes, and People change . . 121 XV. Humours of Professor Jachimo . . .135 XVI. The Dangers of being pretty . . . 143 XVII. Only a Painter 151 XVIII. Philip Leslie 158 XIX. Continuation of the Adventures of Philip Leslie 166 XX. The Professor is wanted .... 181 XXI. The Professor gives a new Address . . 191 XXII. Seeking Fortune 202 XXIII. Hope in the Night CONTEXTS. CHAP. FAGE XXIV. Philip Leslie sees the Best Society . . 227 XXV. Youth at the Helm and Pleasure at the Prow 239 XXVI. Lady Baddington is remarkably kind . 252 XXVII. " Should Old Acquaintance be forgot" . 259 XXVIII. Diamond cut Diamond 268 XXIX. Lord Baddington meets with an unexpected Shock 276 XXX.

The Doctor's Lady Friend . . . .286 XXXI. Called to the Upper House .... 293 XXXII. Captain Falcon comes to his own . . 298 XXXIII. A Happy Family 306 XXXIV. Aunt and Nephew 316 XXXV. Contains the Particulars ofanother "Wedding 322 XXXVI. How the Peer kept his Promise . . . 327 XXXVII. A Happy Marriage 334 XXXVIIT. Before the Ball 347 XXXIX. The Ball 355 XL. Run to Earth 3sil XLI. Lord Baddington sups and breakfasts . 371 XLII. Eighteen Hundred and Forty-five . . 378 XLIII. To Parish Clerks and others . . . 388 XLIV. Her Grace 400 XLV. The Duchess of Minniver receives a Distinguished Circle 410 XLVI. Mr. Tinctop srEAics his Mind . . . . 418 XLVII. The Eleventh Hour 428 XLVIII. "Whither tend the Crooked PiOAds . . 437 XLIX. Shadows

Chapter I. The Morning

TniitTY years since there stood (it stands now) in Lon don Town an inconsiderable slip of a thoroughfare, which was (and is still) one of the channels of communication betAveen the grand street that Nash, Prince of Archi tects, built for George the Fourth, and the grander square erected by some other Vitruvius or Palladio — whose name I never kneAV, but who Avas probably a Ger man — for George the First. The great street is all stucco, and the great square is all red brick ; but my inconsiderable slip inclined (and inclines still) more to the dingincss of the last than to the flimsiness of the first. This street (as it Avas, and is, and is to be, I presume, to the end of genteel Time, I will speak of it in the present tense) is not a handsome street. It is not a Avide street. It has shops — shops both small and mean.

A grocer, who sells candles, lives at one of its corners. He is not a Avholesale grocer, not an Italian Avarehouse man; and his groceries are of so small a description as to warrant the suspicion that he was, at no very remote period of time, a chandler's shopkeeper. Nearly opposite to him there is a barber (he calls himself a peruke maker, but lie shaves, and for three halfpence: selling also valentines in the season, kites, penny canes, and cheap periodicals all the year round). There Avas, when I first knew the street, a greengrocer's Avithin its precincts. v B There are yet several lodging-houses, a boot-shop, and two taverns that flout its gentility. Yet, Avith all these plebeian drawbacks, Little Maddox Street, Hanover Square, was, in eighteen hundred and thirty, as it is now in eighteen hundred and sixty — the most fashionable street in the greatest city of the world.

For in that formal, gray-stone, big-Avig church of St. George's, right over against the street I have named, Fashion — ethereal, capricious, beauteous, glittering, happy Fashion — has, for upwards of a century, erected a high altar for the Solemnisation of Matrimony. Since the death of Queen Anne, Fashion has elected to be married at St. George's. Fashion flutters and faints, and is flounced and furbelowed, there. It signs its name in the register ; its jewelled hand trembling, its peachy cheek blushing through the roseate cosmetics prepared by Mr. Atkinson of Old Bond Street ; it leaves an odour of millcfleurs in the vestry, it comes forth, smiling and skirt-trailing all lace and rich silks and gems, and per fect felicity (of course), doAvn those fashion-worn vestry room steps, to where the lightly-hung chariots, with their gleaming wheels and footmen in embroidery, are waiting ; to where the silky-skinned horses curvet in their armoried harness, paAving and stamping, and champ ing their bits proudly, yet not with such a grace and dignity as are the special gifts of those other long-tailed, long-maned, coal-black steeds, which Mr. Resurgam, the undertaker, Avho lives only next door to the vestry-room, in Mill Street, OAvns — steeds which, in the course of time and business, have not unfrequently to curvet and stamp at Fashion's door, when the shutters are up and the blinds are down — when there are to be no more mar riages, or giA-ing away in marriage, and Avhen Fashion is no longer Fashion, but Mortality.

You knoAv that the vestry-room is but the second entrance — the back-door, in fact — of this aristocratic Temple; that in stately George Street, with its tall, shining Avindows, and red brick fronts with stone dress ings, are the portico of the fane, and the broad flight of stone steps. I could never justly understand why the wedding procession should, so to speak, sneak out of the back-door, when, round the corner, it could come down to its chariots triumphantly, with room for coaches-and six to turn, with ample space for a croAvd to admire — for the charity boys to be ranged in line — for the beadle, in his scarlet and lace, to be seen to advantage — for the bride to shine forth in all her beauty, youth, happiness, wealth — for the brilliant following to show their gay feathers in all their iridescence — for all the spectators to shout, and throw up their caps, if so they listed.

But Fashion has said that it will come doAvn those steps; and Fashion is an institution of so Elcusinian and inscrutable a nature, that it baffles reason, and calmly crushes con sistency. Its laAvs, whatever they may be, and whoever framed them, are as those of the Medcs and Persians. It is not for us, plebeians as we are, to question them ; and they will endure, my brother, long after you and I have done Avith the two first sections of the first column of the Times' Supplement (obtaining perchance not so much as a fleeting notice in the third compartment of that column), and are out of Fashion altogether.

One Tuesday, in the month of November, eighteen hundred and thirty, there was a grand wedding at St. George's, Hanover Square, — so grand, indeed, that Mr. Scrattle, the beadle — that stern boy-compeller -with the large bright waistcoat — had not later than that morning expressed his surprise to Mrs. Muffit, landlady ofthe Sil ver Fish public-house, that the parties about to be joined together in holy matrimony were not "titled folk;" for, as Mr. Scrattle observed, " the dressins was perdigious, leastways like a Lord (as there is Two follerin, and a real Lord the bridegroom's best-man looks), and the bridesmaids, which you could measure twice your harm on their sleeves, lettin' alone 'ats with ribbing enough to set you Up, mum, in an 'aberdasher's shop ; likewise more carriages as was seen since the day that Lord Viscount Baddington — and a noble gentleman he was — married Miss Truepenny, ten years ago come Christmas," A score of carriages at least — no pill-box-looking broughams; no dowdy clarences fit only for nursemaids to take their charges an airing in ; no perched-up cabriolets, with conceited horses and self-sufficient tigers; no com promises between chariots and flys — but real roomy, thirty-years-ago carnages.

They were mostly bright yellow, or of that peculiar shade of green knoAvn as " snuffy." They were addicted to red wheels; they had a leaning to hammercloths trimmed with fringe like that which my Lord, the chimney sweep, wears on his coat on May Day; they were bountifully plastered vrith the he raldic patchwork of their noble OAvners ; they were, to say the truth, clumsy, ugly, old-fashioned vehicles, but they were comfortable, substantial, and luxurious. "What has become of them now ? I know many of them fell into decadence and hackney-coach -hood; but what has become of the hackney-coaches themselves ? Where are they gone ? Have they been transplanted and transported far beyond the seas ? Are the aristocracy of the Canni bal Islands borne to his anthropophagic Majesty's levees in those bygone equipages ?

Are they driven by Cu manchee coachmen in some out-of-the-way South Ameri can Republic, so happy that it is never heard of in Europe ? Are they the roosting places of fowls in back yards beyond mortal ken ? Or are they indeed utterly broken up and scattered ? There was no possibility of mistaking the bride's carriage — it AA'as so grand. It was a chariot with four grays ; and the whole equipage may be emphaticallv characterised as "shiny." For metal and glass, and rubbing and polishing, and rich, smooth stuffs, had been employed with "so laArish a hand in that connubial cara van, that you could see yourself in the window-panes, the panels, the horses' coats, the harness, the crimson jackets and brilliant tops of the postillions, their rubi cund faces, AA-hite fluffy silky hats, shining spurs, and glistening favours, the A-ery rumble and imperial, and axle-boxes, even.

The vehicle diffused a perfume of affluence — Fashionable affluence, mind — that floated through Maddox Street, and was wafted up Mill Street, across Conduit Street, and so into Savile Row, where it stole into faded consulting rooms of pippin-faced old sages ofthe Fashionable faculty, and made those wise old ravens chuckle even as they coughed, thinking that Fash ion, being married, Avould have children that would have chicken-pox and croup, and other ailments, from which even infant Fashion is not exempt. What does it matter if this effulgent equipage came indeed from a job-master's, and had its ordinary habitation in a livery-stable instead of the coach-house of a grand seigneur, and had in its time conveyed plebeian couples — the sons and daughters of enriched Piccadilly tradesmen perhaps — from humbler temples of Hymen?

The banquet provided by Mr. Gun ter is as succulent as the one dressed for us by our OAvn professed cook. The stock of wine sent in half an hour ago by Messrs. Fortnum and Mason is as racy and enlivening as though it had lain for years in the dusty bins of our own cellar. BorroAved plate shines as brightly as our own silver, which Ave have not had time to send for from the bankers' ; Mrs. Buck of Covent Garden will accommodate us with bouquets as bright and sweet smelling as those groAvn in our OAvn conservatories at Ealing or Roehampton. People job a good many things now-a-days besides horses. Borrowed plumes are much Avorn this month — though I have not seen that announce ment as yet in the Follet or the Journal des Modes ; and I don't think we are a thousand miles distant from a favoured country, where a man may job titles and decor ations that shall stand him in as good stead as the coro net of a HoAvard or the riband of the Garter.

Lord Viscount Baddington's carriage-horses were rubbing their noses against the rumble of the bride's chariot, sympathising doubtless Avith their noble OAvner, who was at that very moment of time engaged in saluting the bride in thc vestry. His Lordship's carriage was sympathetic too. It had a gouty look : his Lordship was afflicted with podagra. It Avas very yelloAV : his Lordship's complexion Avas that of an over-ripe shad- THE B_iDDINGTON PEERAGE. dock. It shook a good deal : so did his Lordship. It was very soft and luxurious, very warm and lazy-looking, very lofty and quite empty ; all of which the world (which I do not belieA-e) said were characteristics of his Lordship. There was the carriage of the bride's papa and mamma, cosy and unpretentious, but wealthy-looking — 0 ! quite Crœsus-like in yellowness.

There was the private carriage of Sir William Guy, Baronet, of Oldtress Manor, in the County of Kent, and Member of Parliament for the borough of Mayford, which imposing coach (plum-coloured, turned up Avith scarlet) was not on the present occasion (and for certain reasons) in the occupancy of its proprietor, but had brought to this most Fashionable wedding Compton Guy, Esq., the Baronet's only brother, and a cornet in His Majesty's Horse Guards Blue. There was old Lady Tottringham's carriage, with the Avell-known pair of vicious black horses which fought with and bit each other as they trotted ; the carriage was at every wedding — nobody exactly kneAv why ; and there were half a dozen more carriages and chariots belonging to nameless notabilities — the " supers" of Fashion, they may be called, whose principal occupation, it would seem, is to be rich, and drive about leaving cards, and fill up the backgrounds at births, and deaths, and marriages, whenever Fashion is born, or is wedded, or buried.

It had apparently snowed white favours during the night, so plentifully were those tokens of bridal felicity displayed on hats and jackets, in button-holes and horses' ears. Young girls in the crowd looked with a smiling roguish envy on those satin rosettes, thinking, perhaps, how many cap-ril >1 ions had been spoiled for the decoration of grooms, and porters, and lacqueys; thinking, perchance, how agreeable it Avould be to have a display of similar white favours at one's own wedding, instead of sitting up half the night in the milliner's stifling workroom, making them. For I have heard my grandmother saA-, that a wise cruel Ruler, once, addressing his subjects from his throne, told them that the march of ciA-ilisation was like that of an army, and could not be accomplished without lea\-ing some victims in its wake; and my grandmother, good soul, had heard from her grandmamma, I think, that Fashion marched someAvhat like an army too; and would sometimes, in its advance towards Ineffable Perfection, and BelgraAdan Beatitude, leave behind it pale cheeks, and RAVollen eyes, and aching hearts, with some poverty, and considerable anguish, and a little Death.

The elements had been favourable to Fashion on this joyful occasion, and had politely provided a fine day with as cheerful a promptitude as the pastrycooks had provided the wedding breakfast, as the job-master had sent the four grays and the crimson-vested postillions, or as the Rector of St. George's had laid on an extra curate to assist him in his arduous labour of reading the marriage service. There was a November crimson fire-ball in the heaArens like an artificial fireAvork that Fashion could order and pay for. The fog had gone out of town for the day, to look up a friend in Essex ( William-of-the-Wisp, Esq., the Marshes, near Plaistow), and the sky was of that re luctantly cerulean tint that resembles a rather yellow muslin window-curtain through which the sun is shining. But though passably fine overhead, there was underfoot as rich a stratum of good, thick, clinging mud as any coAretous crossing-SAveeper would desire to see and make a harvest by.

There had been several political meetings of some Ioav people called Radicals during the past week — felloAvs who Avanted to be Represented, or something of that sort, and were very troublesome; and the elements, again acting AA-ith Fashionable high-toryism, had come doAvn upon the rogues with rain, and had so drenched them, that they had remained, perforce, in their squalid homes, and the Prime Minister's windows had remained unbroken from Saturday to Monday. Hence the mud in Little Maddox Street; and hence the great agony and tribulation undergone by sundry exquisites, inappreciably more fashionable than any ofthe titled persons I have yet mentioned, more richly dressed, comelier in feature, taller ■8 THE BADDINGTON PEERAGE. in figure, loftier in demeanour, haughtier in conversation; but who, through the gross injustice, envy and partiality of Society, are never mentioned in the Court Guide, or the Morning Post, or the Rogal Red Book.

I mean those honest gentlemen, who, for a certain j'early stipend, consent to put flour on their heads, and coals on the fire, and Arictuals on the table; to be called "John" when their name may be Peter; to wear silk stockings and parti coloured clothes; to walk before lap-dogs, and behind old ladies; to be, what should properly and courteously be termed retainers, henchmen, adherents, servitors, at tendants, vassals if you will, but what irreverent men persist in calling flunkeys. There stood in the mud — the vile plebeian mud — an honest British man of this category, and he shall stand, too, as a model for all his brethren — the bride's father's sergeant -footman, none else. Six feet in height ; a shapely man, broad shoulders, beef-asserting chest, lusty calves clad in silk, like pink balustrades supporting an architrave of plush.

Large, glossy, protruding whiskers, wings to the calm edifice of his face — whiskers that an ambitious little foot-page might be tempted to lay hold of, that he might pull himself up to footmanhood. A front — not exactly " like Jove to threaten or command," but a good solid head for all that, Avith plenty of front &ni plenty of back, and bushels of powder. White teeth, white gloves, white neckcloth, white favours, a delicate bloom on each cheek, a pensive but complacent smile (the mud lay heavy on his soul, but the sense of duty to the Fair made him hold up), a graceful aiguillette, and the largest cocked-hat that ever was seen since the la mented demise of his late Royal Highness the Duke of York. Such was the outward semblance of John, whose name might have been Peter, as he stood in his varnished, silver -buckled shoes, gracefully reclining on his gold tipped bamboo, and waiting for his masters and mistresses to come out of church.

He had the mien and bearing of a Prince; yet who Avould have thought that this prince Avas not proud, but was in secret affable, and had, only five minutes since, condescended to cross the road with Tummas, his companion, and to partake at that thirsty " Silver Fish" of Geneva and cloves? " Who's funeral is this, footman?" Now I put it to you if you were so dressed, so ap pointed, so turned out — for that is the word — from a band-box of splendour; and ifyou had the same "high disdain and sense of merit" as had this magnificent creature: how would you like to be addressed as " Footman," and to be asked whose funeral it was on the occasion of the most fashionable wedding that had occurred for ten years? More than this, Iioav Avould you like to be so spoken to by a shameful thing, who had the form ancl garments of a woman, the face, and voice, and gestures of no sex, but of a phantom Avhose horrible, swollen, reeling, ragged presence was a blot upon the Sun, and a shame to the day, and a scandal to the occasion ; who was young in years by her black hair, and a hundred years old by her Death-discs of eyes; who looked as if she had risen sud denly from the mud, and was its sister ?

I am glad that John-Peter did not fell her to the earth Avith his golden-tipped bamboo. He would have been justified, of course, his feelings were so dreadfully outraged ; but he Avas a chivalrous man, devoted to the sex, and he spoke her fair. " It aint a funeral," he responded unaffectedly, "it's a marriage. Can't you see, stupid ?" "Curse you," the woman resumed quite rudely; " you knoAv what I mean. Whose marriage is it, fool ?" Again the cheeks of the insulted John-Peter glowed with virtuous resentment; again the bamboo quivered for a moment in his hand, but again he withheld himself. " Gaw'long," he said, Avith great forbearance. " If you don't give me an answer, you jackanapes," the woman exclaimed as calmly as though she had 1 leen addressing an Equal, though every muscle in her face was trembling with suppressed passion, " I'll heave this mud over you."

She stooped as she spoke, and actually plunged her scooped hands into the kennel. The suddenness, and desperation, and abnegation of womanhood in the action — her furious face, her wild appearance, that dreadful dress, which was not that of a peasant, nor that of a beggar, nor that of a wanton, but a mixture of all three : all these things, together with her threat, so discomposed John-Peter that he knew not for the nonce what to reply. He looked round helplessly for Mr. Scrattle, the beadle; but that official was in the church. There was a coach door between him and his brethren — there was no new policeman at his elboAV, and he was positively constrained to give his questioner an answer. " It's Mr. Falcon's eldest daughter, which is married to Sir William Guy, Barrinet," he explained, " which is Mr. Falcon, of Grosvenor Square, and is Lord Wyeount Baddington's nevay ; and now you know all about it, and — and;" but here he broke down in his oratory, and, re commending the woman to " gaw'long," so concluded.

She needed no second bidding. She had turned and taken her wretched body away before the footman had closed his mouth. He, making a feint of driving her off by a gentle movement ofthe bamboo stick, was pleased to find her gone ; and felt not even hurt Avhen an angry costermonger and a street-boy, who stood upon his dignity, asked him derisively " vere he vos a-drivin' to ?" adding to the inquiry the insulting epithet of "welvet shanks." Nor did he show much indignation Avhen the depraved crowd, stirred up by the costermonger's sarcasm, saluted him and Tummas, his companion, and Chawles, his fellow, and 'Enry, his mate in servitude, with ironical cheers of " Bravo, knobsticks !" and recommendations to look at the backs of their heads, because mischievous boys had spilt bags of flour over them.

For, to say the truth, the woman had been too much for John-Peter's nervous system. He trembled, he Avinked, his whiskers became flaccid with agitation, and he did not recover his equili brium till the appearance of Mr. Scrattle at the top of the vestry-room steps, in a high state of inflammation of face and waistcoat, announced to all concerned that the wedding party was about to descend. The boys in the crowd began to cheer lustily as the people who had had to do with Hymen appeared on the threshold of a NeAv Life. Aime, Avhat a threshold ! Gibb, what a life ! There are two gates to St. George's, one of Ivory, and one of Horn ; and where is that Avhich is of Ivory but in Little Maddox Street ? And lo, through the Ivory teeth of that door come the couple who have been joined together in holy matrimony into a fantastic dreamy region where there is nothing certain — nothing real.

She, whom the parson asks at the communion-rails if she will have yonder man in the dress-coat to be her wedded husband, takes, unconsciously, a lottery ticket from the hands of the mumbling clerk when she falters forth " yes;" and the Three Fates coAver at the bottom of the vestry-room steps, and give her, as she passes the Threshold of Ivory, a prize or a blank — oft-times the lat ter; a Prize, that shall make her fruitful, and loved, ancl honoured, and a croAvn to her husband ; a Blank, that shall tell her she is yoked to a ruffian or a sot, Avhom she has taken for life, for poorer and poorer, for worse and worse, in health, sickness, and in soul-sorrow, for him to outrage and oppress, till merciful Death do them part. But there was no just cause or impediment (there never is in fashionable marriages) why these two parties should not come together.

So down they came together accordingly, in this order of procession : Mr. Scrattle, Beadle, agitated, but equal to the emer gency; telegraphing all the way to John, who might have been Peter, who telegraphed to Tummas ; so he to Chaw les, 'Enry on the coach-box in outlying Mill Street not being forgotten; and Jems (Lady Tottringham's particular, grown on her ladyship's estate), being summoned by instantaneous (juvenile and penny-feed) messengers from Mrs. Muffit's hostelry, telegraphs followed by a simulta neous and wide-spreading adjustment of cocked-hats, couching of gold-headed batons, and opening of carriage doors with a clang. Next : the Bride and Bridegroom. Here is some thing official, which, like a flourish of trumpets, will serve to introduce two personages so important. Read this from the Times newspaper of the — th November, eighteen hundred and thirty.

" Marriages. — At St. George's, Hanover Square, by the Rev. Lavn-ence Grylls, M.A., assisted by the Rev. Caseous Lacteal, B.A., Sir William Katesby Rookwood Fox Guy, son and heir ofthe late Sir Ambrose Percy Powderham Guy, of Oldtress Manor, near Mayford, Kent, Bart., to Caroline Amy, eldest daughter of Gervase Fal con, Esq., of his Majesty's Carpet-bag and Hat-box Office, and of Grosvenor Square." I flatter myself that by the judicious employment of those editorial bosom-friends, the sharp-cutting scissors, I have avoided a very great difficulty, and almost impera tive necessity for digression, in explaining to you " who was who" (to employ an ungrammatical but popular idiotism) in eighteen hundred and thirty.

A hat, then thought the acme of taste, elegance, and beauty, but which, now-a-days, would be considered as hideous, absurd, and unbecoming, as I fervently trust blue uglics and crinoline petticoats will be thought ten years hence — a satin cart-wheel, about which had been entangled some ribbon harness ; a white gros-de-Naples pelisse (yes, ladies and gentlemen, a pelisse); sleeves like balloons, like Titanic legs of mutton, like Brobdignag pears, like Polyphemus pegtops painted white ; a lace collar something like an Elizabethan ruff, something like Herodias's charger, with — not the Baptist's head in it — but the pretty, blushing, happy face of Caroline Amy the Bride ; skirts of extreme brevity, pink silk stockings, with open work on the instep ; Avhite satin shoes, with strings crossed over the foot ; and — shall it be told in Gath ? — it shall, for this is a faithful chronicle — some curious Vandyking and frilling manifest between the end of the skirts and the beginning of the ancle, which would have delighted the æsthetic eyes of Mrs. Amelia Bloomer, who (for gallantry's sake let me hasten to remark) could not, by any possibility, have passed the verge of infancy thirty years ago.

Is not this the fact, you gentlemen who were married in eighteen hundred thirty ? Didn't you wed a young lady in a coach-wheel hat, leg-of-mutton sleeves, short skirts, and Vandyked trousers ? Were you not married yourselves in a hat Avith a turned-up brim, a chocolate coat with the collar up to your ears, Cossack pantaloons, peaked boots, and three under-waistcoats ? Go, tell your children this, and they in their turn shall tell their grandchildren that they married a young lady in a hoop of iron, horse-hair, and gutta-percha, with a cushion on the top of her head, and her hair scragged back like unto a Mandarin's AA'ife of Shanghai ; being themselves arrayed in a costume, in which the semblance of the tavern waiter struggles for mastery with thc undertaker out for a holiday. This was the Bride ; eighteen summers, bright eyes, smiles, a little foot, and — ifyou desire a closer portraiture, go read Sir John Suckling's ballad on a Avedding.

The chocolate coat, undcr-Avaistcoats, and Cossack pantaloons hinted at, and to fill this equipment a long, strange, bony body ; a longer, stranger, bonier face ; long hands ; long feet ; a curious, shambling, awkward gait ; sleepy, yet restless, gray eyes ; an expression of mouth half amounting to a yaAvn, and half to a sneer ; hair of no particular colour, but with a lingering sus picion of sandiness — hair that would obstinately per sist in lying the contrary way to that in which it Avas brushed, and with an inequality in its length and thick ness that made you involuntarily surmise that its owner had gone to bed without a nightcap in a room troubled with rats, and had had a portion of his chevelure bitten off by those voracious animals during the night. This was the Bridegroom. A stout, well-to-do, crimson-faced gentleman, in the prime of life ; his stiff, black hair a little shot AA'ith gray ; white waistcoat and white neckcloth, both capacious ; diamond stud buttons ; heavy gold chain, seals and key.