Then we went to the dairy, so fresh and cool and clean—glittering with cleanliness! overflowing with creamy riches! and there I had the greatest enjoyment of my whole day, the printing with my own hands a pat of butter, and putting it up in a little basket covered with a vine leaf, to take home for the dear mamma’s tea. Then we should have gone to the kitchen, the back kitchen, the brew-house, the wash-house, and the rest of the bride’s new territories, but this part of the domicil was literally too hot to hold us; the cooking of the great wedding dinner was in full activity, and the bridegroom himself was forced to retreat before his notable mother, who had come to superintend all things for the day. So back we drew to the hall, a large square brick apartment, with a beam across the ceiling, a wide yawning chimney, and wooden settles with backs to them; where many young people being assembled, and one of them producing a fiddle, it was agreed to have a country dance until dinner should be ready, the bride and bridegroom leading off, and I following with the bridegroom’s man. Oh, the blunders, the confusion, the merriment of that country dance! No two people attempted the same figure; few aimed at any figure at all; each went his own way; many stumbled; some fell, and every body capered, laughed, and shouted at once. My partner prudently caught me up in his arms again, for fear of my being knocked down and danced over, which, considering some of the exploits of some of the performers, seemed by no means impossible, and would have been a worse catastrophe than an onslaught of the turkey-cock. A summons to dinner put an end to the glee. Such a dinner! The plenty of Camacho’s wedding was but a type of my Nancy’s. Fish from the great pond, roast beef and Yorkshire pudding, boiled fowls and a gammon of bacon, a green goose and a sucking pig, plum puddings, apple pies, cheese-cakes and custards, formed a part of the bill of fare, followed by home-brewed beer and home-made wine, by syllabub, and by wedding cake. Every body ate enough for four, and there was four times more than could by any possibility be eaten. I have always thought it one of the strongest proofs of sense and kindness in my pretty maid, that she rescued me from the terrible hospitality of her mother-in-law, and gave me back unscathed into my father’s hands, when, about three o’clock, he arrived to reclaim me. The affluence and abundance of that gala day—the great gala of a life-time—in that Hampshire farm-house, I have never seen surpassed. This was my first appearance as a bridesmaid. My next, which took place about a twelvemonth after, was of a very different description.