“I shall be neglecting my duties, you know, my dear young lady,” he said, shaking his head. “It’s very wrong—very wrong, for I ought to be at the Registry; but—well, perhaps I can manage to come—very wrong, though—very wrong, and quite out of my line of business! I expect that I shall begin to address the Court—I mean the clergyman—for the petitioner.” And so it came to pass that on this auspicious day the registering was left to look after itself; and, as a matter of history, it may be stated that no question was asked in Parliament about it. Then there was Lady Holmhurst, looking very pretty in her widow’s dress; and her boy Dick, who was in the highest spirits, and bursting with health and wonder at these strange proceedings on the part of his “Auntie”; and, of course, the legal twins brought up the rear. And there in the vestry stood Augusta in her bridal dress, as sweet a woman as ever the sun shone on; and looking at her beautiful face, Dr. Probate nearly fell in love with her himself. And yet it was a sad face just then. She was happy—very, as a loving woman who is about to be made a wife should be; but when a great joy draws near to us it comes companioned by the shadows of our old griefs. The highest sort of happiness has a peculiar faculty of recalling to our minds that which has troubled them in the past, the truth being, that extremes in this, as in other matters, will sometimes touch, which would seem to suggest that sorrow and happiness—however varied in their bloom—yet have a common root. Thus it was with Augusta now. As she stood in the vestry there came to her mind a recollection of her dear little sister, and of how she had prophesied happy greatness and success for her. Now the happiness and the success were at hand, and there in the aisle stood her own true love; but yet the recollection of that dear face, and of the little mound that covered it, rested on them like a shadow. It passed with a sigh, and in its place there came the memory of poor Mr. Tombey, but for whom she would not have been standing there a bride, and of his last words as he put her into the boat. He was food for fishes now, poor fellow, and she was left alone with a great and happy career opening out before her—a career in which her talents would have free space to work. And yet how odd to think it: two or three score of years and it would all be one, and she would be as Mr. Tombey was. Poor Mr. Tombey! perhaps it was as well that he was not there to see her happiness; and let us hope that wherever it is we go after the last event we lose sight of the world and those we knew therein. Otherwise there must be more hearts broken in heaven above than in earth beneath. “Now, then, Miss Smithers,” broke in Dr. Probate, “for the very last time—nobody will call you that again, you know—take my arm; his Lordship—I mean the parson—is there.”