"Would you two mind walking in front?" sang out Tregurtha without looking round, but with a sternness caused by his sense of complicity. They did so, and the wedding procession moved on much quicker. At the church gate they were greeted by Eric Rodda, the curate here. He was so ingeniously unselfish (_i.e._ self-tormenting) a man that he had insisted on being the one to give his loved Lyndis to the man she loved. "Well, every man has his particular fancy; but it puts _me_ in a precious unpopular position," Roscoria had thought, whilst accepting the magnanimity. "All right?" asked Rodda then of his patients, victims, clients, or whatever those wights are called on whom the parson pronounces the matrimonial benediction. "For the present," replied Roscoria. "Then come along," said Eric, and he led the way into the little rustic church. It was a picturesque old-fashioned place, evidently the resort of the ritualistic, for there were lighted candles on the altar and great bunches of scented flowers. The flowers lent a charm to the church and gave a memory of the fresh outer air, from which one is apt to feel so desolately shut out when encased within consecrated walls. The candles, also, were much needed, for the windows were stained in such deep red and purple tints that an early morning sun could hardly pierce the painting. The people present at this unconventional wedding were, besides the chief couple and their "best man," Tregurtha, Eric, the parson, who now surged gorgeously in from the vestry with flowing gown and ponderous prayer-book; the elderly and orthodox clerk or verger, who followed with a mien of severe desire to see a tiresome ceremony properly performed; then, lastly, an aged crone, of the sweeping and dusting persuasion, on whose neck Lyndis would fain have wept, in default of another woman. But our brides shed no tears nowadays. The times are undemonstrative, and thus the drooping veil, whose original use was to conceal unbecoming traces of tears, now only serves to soften the marble rigidity of resignation. Who that has once seen it can ever forget the Iphigenia-like air of beauty at the hymeneal! And then the wretched bridegroom! Whether he stands trembling before the statuesque bride, or kneeling, with the shiny soles of his patent-leather boots in view, what an advertisement to his bachelor friends against matrimony!