"Mercy 'pon us!" cried he in his astonishment. "Here's a new marriage wrote down!" The exclamation caused the party to gather round him. Mr. Backup, remembering the circumstances of the marriage, and that he himself was in the well-kept secret, turned nervous at once. "Why, it's--it's--it's Mr. Frank Raynor!" went on the clerk, staring at the page, and mastering its revelations slowly in his consternation. "And Miss--Miss---- Well, if ever I was so struck in my life! Did you marry them, sir?" holding out the book to the parson. "Is that your reverence's own signature?" His reverence took the book, muttered something quite foreign to the subject, that no one in the world could hear distinctly, himself included, and proceeded to enter the present marriage. As it was upon the same page, the parties signing it after him had the satisfaction of gratifying their own curiosity; and read, plainly as ink could show it, the names of Francis Raynor and Margaret St. Clare. Now, had Clerk Trim haply been alone when he made this discovery, he, being a reticent and prudent man, would probably have kept the news to himself. But unfortunately he was not alone. Six or eight people were present, besides the parson; and, half of them being females, the reader may be left to judge what chance there was of its being kept secret. The first to spread it abroad was Mrs. Trim. The wedding company having dispersed--without any invitation to her to accompany them to the house of the bride's mother and partake of the feasting, of which she had cherished a slight hope--Mrs. Trim betook herself to Float the druggist's. She had no particular work on hand that morning, and thought she could not do better than consecrate it to gossip. Mrs. Float, who was so far an invalid as to be unable to do much for herself, having been crippled years ago by an attack of rheumatic-fever, was in her usual chair by the fireside in the small parlour behind the shop, and Blase Pellet was pouring out some hot milk for her. Let the weather be ever so warm, Mrs. Float would not go without her fire: and perhaps she needed it. She was a stout, easy sort of woman, who took the best and the worst sides of life equally calmly; even her husband's attachment to the Golden Shaft. Of Blase Pellet she was very fond: for he was always ready to render her little services, as he might have been to a mother. Blase Pellet had his good and his bad qualities--as most people have: it was chiefly on the subject of Rosaline Bell that he was crazed. "I'll do that," said Mrs. Trim, taking the warming-can from him. "You are wanted in the shop, Mr. Pellet. A customer followed me in."