It was not a grandiose or thrilling ceremonial, yet there was a certain sober earnestness in its very simplicity. The rite, shorn of all ornament, was a religious rite performed with all the grave businesslike straightforwardness of a civil agreement. Matrimony thus approached wore a somewhat appalling aspect: no sweet harmony of boyish voices shrilling a bridal hymn; no mighty organ exploding suddenly in the crashing chords of Mendelssohn’s Wedding March; only a man and woman standing before a priest in a naked stony vestry; a priest who interrogated them coldly, with his eyes on his book, very much as if he had been hearing them their Catechism. The man had a dull indifferent look, and there was that in the bearing and appearance of the dowdily-dressed woman which hinted that the marriage was an after-thought. Daphne shuddered as she came out of the sunless vestry. ‘That is not my idea of a quiet wedding,’ she said. ‘Please let us go to the bears; I am dying to see something cheerful.’ They went back to the crowded arcades, the stalls, the processional cattle, and all the life and bustle of a monthly market, and down the whole length of the street, till they found themselves on a bridge that spanned a deep hollow between two hills. On one side of the bridge they looked down into the cattle market, where a multitude of blue blouses, of every shade and tone, from the vivid azure garment bought yesterday, to the faded and patched coat of age and poverty, mixed up with the brown, and cream, and roan, and dun of the cows and oxen, made a wonderful harmony in blues and browns. On the other side there was a famous bear-pit, where half-a-dozen mangy-looking animals are maintained in a state of inglorious repose for the honour of the city. The bear is not a handsome or a graceful beast, nor does his woolly front beam with intelligence. Yet he has a look of ponderous benevolence, a placid air of being nobody’s enemy but his own, which commends him to those who enjoy his acquaintance only at a distance. He is fond of being fed, and has an amiable greediness, which brings him in direct sympathy with his patrons. There is something childlike, too, and distinctly human in his love of buns, to say nothing of his innate aptitude for dancing. These qualities are liable to distract the judgment of his admirers, who forget that at heart he is still a savage, and that his hug is mortal. Daphne had provided herself with a bag of cakes, and immediately became on the friendliest terms with three ragged-looking Bruins who were squatting on their haunches, ready to receive the favours of an admiring public. She would not believe Baedeker’s story of the English officer, who fell into the den, and was killed by these woolly monsters, after a desperate fight for life. ‘I couldn’t credit anything unkind of them,’ she protested. ‘See how patiently that dear thing waits, with his mouth wide open, and how dexterously he catches a bit of roll.’