“They all stood round the bed, and Mr. Milvey, opening his book, began the service, so rarely associated with the shadow of death; so inseparable in the mind from a flush of life and gaiety and health and hope and joy. Bella thought how different from her own sunny little wedding, and wept. Mrs. Milvey overflowed with pity, and wept too. The dolls’ dressmaker, with her hands before her face, wept in her golden bower. Reading in a low, clear voice, and bending over Eugene, who kept his eyes upon him, Mr. Milvey did his office with suitable simplicity. As the bridegroom could not move his hand, they touched his fingers with the ring, and so put it on the bride. When the two plighted their troth, she laid her hand on his, and kept it there. When the ceremony was done, and all the rest departed from the room, she drew her arm under his head, and laid her own head down on the pillow by his side. ‘Undraw the curtains, my dear girl,’ said Eugene, after a while, ‘and let us see our wedding-day.’ The sun was rising, and his first rays struck into the room, as she came back and put her lips to his. ‘I bless the day!’ said Eugene. ‘I bless the day!’ said Lizzie.” [The clergyman and friends who assisted on this interesting occasion as above, left London from Waterloo Station. We may remember that Mrs. Rokesmith, escorted by Mr. Lightwood, came into town by rail from Greenwich. Thus they would change trains at WATERLOO JUNCTION, and adopt the _South-Western Route_ as being the more convenient, travelling to Reading, and driving thence to Henley. It was at this terminus that Bradley Headstone first heard (from Mr. Milvey) of the intended wedding, and was so seriously upset by the news, that an attack of epilepsy ensued in consequence. We thus read in chapter 11, book 4, with reference to Bella and her escort:— “From Greenwich they started directly for London, and in London they waited at a railway station until such time as the Rev. Frank Milvey, and Margaretta, his wife, with whom Mortimer Lightwood had been already in conference, should come and join them. . . . Then the train rattled among the house-tops, and among the ragged sides of houses, torn down to make way for it, over the swarming streets, and under the fruitful earth, until it shot across the river. . . . A carriage ride succeeded near the solemn river. . . . They drew near the chamber where Eugene lay.” This is certainly descriptive of the SOUTH-WESTERN RAILWAY, and is _not_ applicable to the Great Western Route.]