However, he behaved like a gentleman, and sat sedately on the top step during the ceremony. This, together with the white bow he wore, caused some of the village gossips, who were not invited, to say that the whole thing was planned, and was a disgrace to the town; but wise people know that such remarks are as much a part of a wedding as the ring and veil. [Illustration] Tommy, who with his mother and father occupied one of the front pews, crept out and drew gradually nearer to where stood the family lawyer and friend, on whose arm the bride had entered. In another moment he had climbed into a chancel chair that was partly concealed by a column; from this place he had an unimpeded view. It was the first time that the child had ever been to a wedding, and the doings had all the fascination of entire novelty. So when the clergyman, looking up, asked distinctly, “Who giveth this woman to be married to this man?” Tommy shouted “Me!” without the slightest suspicion that it was not what was expected of him, adding indignantly to an usher who made haste to lift him down, amid the natural ripple of laughter, “I had to, of course, ’cause she’d rather, and now she isn’t my sweetheart any more.” The wedding breakfast was very jolly, at least everybody said so, and all sorts of jokes were mingled with the congratulations. The minister, who was very bashful, astonished himself by saying that he was glad that they had finished with all the barbed wires of life before the wedding, and then suddenly kissed the bride, amid general applause. The wedding cake boxes were white with initials, and a dog’s head, Miss Jule’s crest, in silver. And the gossips had a second spasm when they learned beyond dispute that there were souvenirs, of Miss Letty’s invention, for all who owned dogs--small-sized Bologna sausages wrapped in silver foil, and tied with white. After it was all over,--and the bride had gone away, and the last shoe been thrown, while Miss Jule was removing rice from her neck, saying to a rather mournful relative, “Of course they will be happy, they can’t help it, for they not only like but dislike the same things,”--Tip appeared from upstairs with a crestfallen air, and in his mouth a white slipper, one that his idol had just discarded, which had dropped to the floor of her room. Coming out on the porch, after several efforts he succeeded in sitting upright, a trick Letty had taught him in imitation of Hamlet, supporting his unsteady spine against the post. Then, as no Miss Letty came to applaud him, he dropped the slipper on the step as a challenge, and mounted guard over it until night came, when he carried it with him to bed unchidden. [Illustration] * * * * * “Mistress,” said Waddles, as he sat watching her that night while she put away her trinkets, and brushed and braided her hair, “I wish that I hadn’t eaten so much of that round black lumpy cheese that Miss Letty cut with the great knife.”