Alas for Daniel! His jubilation was short-lived. Early on the morrow he was up and doing, putting the final touches to his preparations for welcoming his bride, and he set forth in good time to join the wedding party, whom he found ready and waiting for him, sitting stiffly in a row in the parlour. Mr. Cosser, magnificent in broadcloth and his father’s deerskin waistcoat; Mrs. Cosser in a violet gown and a Paisley shawl; Dick Cosser, Phœbe’s younger brother, in a suit of checks that would set an æsthetic person’s teeth on edge; Phœbe herself in a crimson silk with a white hat and a fluffy tippet, over which her eyes twinkled with most uncanny effect. Daniel privately thought she looked very well, and extended his arm to his future mother-in-law, with a bosom swelling with pride. Mr. Cosser had already preceded them with Phœbe, and Dick brought up the rear with his cousin Mary Ann, a tall maid of sixteen, who had an unusual capacity for giggling; these two were to officiate respectively as best man and bridesmaid. Daniel’s parents had long been dead, and most of his relations scattered, but his married sister who lived at some little distance, had promised to drive over and meet them at the church. She and her husband and their three or four olive-branches were, in fact, already installed in one of the front pews when the little procession arrived; the clergyman was in readiness, and the ceremony began without delay. All went well at first; Phœbe was jubilant and extremely audible in her replies, Daniel gruff and sheepish as it behoved a rustic bridegroom to be, but just as the Rector uplifting his voice inquired “Dost thou take this woman to be thy wedded wife?” a certain scuffling sound was heard at the further end of the church, and the half-made husband might have been seen to start and falter. “Daniel, wilt thou have this woman to be thy wedded wife?” repeated the Rector sternly. Suppressed titters were heard, not only from the direction of the porch, but actually from the aisles. For the life of him, Daniel could not resist turning his head right and left with an anguished gaze. Horror! There was Abel Bolt peering from behind one pillar, and surely that was Jarge’s impudent face grinning at him from the opposite side. The Rector glared through his spectacles and uplifted his voice yet more. “Daniel!” he cried emphatically, “wilt thou have this woman to be thy wedded wife?” The best man cleared his throat warningly, and the bride turning a reproachful glance somewhere in the direction of the west window, nudged him with her elbow. “Speak up!” she whispered. This was the last straw. Hardly knowing what he did, Daniel started away from her, and whisking round charged through the bridal party, down the nave, thrust aside the knot of gaping onlookers in the porch, descended the flight of steps apparently with one stride, and bounding over the lychgate fled into the fields on the opposite side of the road.