Three months afterwards, just when all was arranged, and Mrs. Venn was at last persuaded that Hampshire is not all pigs and rheumatism, forests, and swamps, and charcoal, when John, with his voice rather shaky, and a patch of red where his whiskers should have been, had proclaimed his own banns three times—for he was a very odd fellow in some things, and scorned the “royal road” to wedlock—just at that time, I say, poor Lady Nowellʼs confinement upset all calculation, and her melancholy death flung a pall on wedding–favours. Not only through respect, but from real sympathy with the faithful friend, John Rosedew and Amy held counsel together, and deferred the long–pending bridal. “_Ὅσῳ μακρότερον, τόσῳ μακάρτερον_”, said John, who always thought in Greek, except when Latin hindered him; but few young ladies will admit—and now–a–days they all understand it—that the apophthegm is applied well. However, it did come off at last; John Rosedew, when his banns had been rolling in his mind, in the form of Greek senarii, for six months after the first time of out–asking, set to and read them all over again in public; to revive their efficacy, and to surrebut all let and hindrance. He was accustomed now to so many stops, that he felt surprised when nobody rose to interpellate. And so the banns of John Rosedew, bachelor, and Amy Venn, spinster, &c., were read six times in Nowelhurst Church, and six times from the desk at Kidlington. And, sooth to say, it was not without significance. “Tantæ molis erat to produce our beautiful Amy”. On the nuptial morning, Sir Cradock, whom they scarcely expected, gathered up his broken courage, sank his own hap in anotherʼs, and was present and tried to enjoy himself. How shy John Rosedew was, how sly to conceal his blushes, how spry when the bride glanced towards him, and nobody else looked that way—all this very few could help observing; but they liked him too well to talk of it. Enough that the friend of his youth, thoroughly understanding John, was blessed with so keen a perception of those simple little devices, that at last he did enjoy himself, which he deserved to do for trying. When the twins were nearly three years old, Mrs. Rosedew presented John with the very thing he wished for most, an elegant little girl. And here the word “elegant” is used with forethought, and by prolepsis; though Mrs. OʼGaghan, lent for a time to the Rectory, employed that epithet at the first glance, even while announcing the gender. “Muckstraw, then, and sheʼs illigant intirely; an’ itʼs hopin’ I be as thereʼll only be two on her, one for each of me darlin’ boys. And now cudnʼt you manage it, doctor dear”?