Then there was the question of the form of service. Mrs. Rowlands’ Book of Modern Prayer was turned down at once, curiously by Juliet: she declared that she would inevitably get the staggers if I were asked “Wilt thou respect him and show all reasonable deference to him, love, humour, and tolerate him, in sickness (other than permanent insanity) and in health?”: nor was it with much less apprehension that she looked forward to my replying that I would “take him to my wedded husband, in accordance with the terms of the marriage settlement, till death, permanent insanity, cruelty, infidelity, or incompatibility of temperament us did part.” Finally we fell back on “The Revised Book of Common Prayer” (highly recommended by all the Bishops), which contented itself with altering “obey and serve” to “respect and co-operate with him,” and adding to the final words “so long as ye both shall live” the proviso “until the King shall take other order.” When it was explained to Porstock (after the ceremony) that this curious phrase allowed for the possibility of a divorce, he replied that the King would have to set his alarum clock at three any morning he wanted to take that kind of order—which was understood to indicate his unwillingness that His Majesty should move in the matter at all. One or two of my friends, all of the older generation, kept up the old practice of giving wedding presents in kind—Lady Combe, for example, gave me a new form of “sluggard’s delight” (Porstock did not go to bed till two the night he stayed with them), which automatically boiled an egg every half-hour, and Lady Lushcombe some beautiful table silver with my maiden initials engraved upon it, explaining that it was “just as well to be prepared for _all_ emergencies, my dear.” But cheques were already the usual form, and I was able to publish the fact that I had received cheques amounting to £2,600 13_s._ 4_d._ in honour of the occasion. The stupid and invidious habit of itemizing the list of cheques had not then grown up.