Mamma then thought the best plan was to have the banns put up in some quiet church, where no questions would be asked as to where they lived, and it would be assumed that they resided within the parish, and when they had been called out, they could just go quietly and get married, which would keep things square with the countess and everybody else. And this arrangement being perfected, and liberty given to Billy to write to his bride, whose name and address were now furnished him, he at length took his departure; and the ladies having talked him over, then resolved themselves into a committee of taste, to further the forthcoming tournament. And by dint of keeping all hands at work all night, Miss Willing was enabled to return to the countess with the first instalment of such a series of lady-killing garments as mollified her heart, and enabled her to sustain the blow that followed, which however was mitigated by the assurance that Mr. and Mrs. William Pringle were going to live in London, and that Madam’s taste would always be at her ladyship’s command. We wish we could gratify our lady readers with a description of the brilliant attire that so completely took the shine out of the Countess of Honiton as has caused her to hide her diminished head ever since, but our pen is unequal to the occasion, and even if we had had a John Leech to supply our deficiencies, the dresses of those days would look as nothing compared to the rotatory haystacks of the present one. What fair lady can bear the sight of her face painted in one of the old poke bonnets of former days? To keep things right, the bonnet ought to be painted to the face every year or two. But to the lovers. In due time “Mamma” (Miss Freemantle) presented her blooming daughter to the happy Billy, who was attended to the hymeneal alter by his confidential clerk, Head-and-shoulders Smith. Big Ben, who was dressed in a blue frock coat with a velvet collar, white kerseymere trousers, and varnished boots, looking very like one of the old royal dukes, was the only other person present at the interesting ceremony, save Pheasant-feathers, who lurked in one of the pews. The secret had been well kept, for the evening papers of that day and the morning ones of the next first proclaimed to the “great world,” that sphere of one’s own acquaintance, that William Pringle, Esquire, of Doughty Street, Russell Square, was married to Miss Emma Willing, of—the papers did not say where. CHAPTER VI. THE HAPPY UNITED FAMILY.—CURTAIN CRESCENT. 052m _Original Size_