a good, sharp parson, that can go the pace slap up when he likes; and, knowing that the Champagne was waiting for him, he put the harness on ’em in no time; and the women did the water-cart business in style--where all their tears come from I can’t think--but they laid the dust beautifully. Then there was signing names in the vestry, and a lot of chaff about kissing the bride, which so upset that muff, Lambkin, the parson’s apprentice (curate, I suppose, is what they call the chap), that he fairly turned tail and bolted. Next, we all bundled home again; Ally in Coverdale’s trap this time (and precious handsome he looked, as he handed her in, I can tell you); and then came the ‘crowning mercy’ (as Lambkin said in his sermon last Sunday), the wedding breakfast. The governor had done the thing well for once in his life, I will say that for the old boy. There were all the delicacies of all the four seasons (one only wished one had four stomachs, like a camel, to pay them proper attention; though I didn’t do badly, in spite of my mono-stomachic conformation). Then the Champagne;--my dear Tips, I am not using a mere figure of rhetoric when I say the supply was unlimited;--how much I drank I literally _cannot_ tell, but, in mentioning the affair to inquiring friends, you had better restrict your statement to half-a-dozen bottles--as a general rule, a gentleman should not take more on such occasions--it is not every man who possesses my strength of head and self-control. I sat next to one of the bridesmaids-- “‘A little, laughing fairy thing, Just like an angel on the wing;’ A rosebud ’neath the moon’s pale ring; A playful zephyr, whispering Some secret to the early Spring.