Preston's troubles, meanwhile, were hard to bear, and were not borne in silence. By faith, as has been noted, he was a Presbyterian; but by reason of his social position it was incumbent to attend occasionally--so often, in fact, as he went to church at all--an establishment of the Protestant Episcopal persuasion. Yet it appeared, when he came to arrange for the wedding of his wife's niece, which was the first he had ever arranged for, that there were ecclesiastical distinctions about weddings concerning which he had never previously dreamed. There were certain churches where one was expected to be a regular Sunday attendant; but when it came to a wedding, these would not serve: a wedding, to be socially correct, must occur in one of two or three churches in which, apparently, nothing else ever occurred. They seemed to be set aside for the exclusive business of marrying, and they married only exclusive people. Through one's sexton one rented one of these as one rents the Berkeley Lyceum, save that, in the matter of the wedding church, its rector is thrown in for good measure; then, when one proposed to introduce one's friend Buggins, the composer, to play the wedding-marches, one was told that only the church's regular organist was permitted to play the church's superb organ, and that, if one really required music, the regular organist could be hired at so much--and "so much" was not so pleasantly indefinite as it sounded. "I never before realised what my father-in-law went through for me," said Preston. "Things are never so hard as you think they'll be," said his wife in an effort at comfort. "Things are always worse," replied the uncomforted Newberry. "Thank the Lord, I'll never have to arrange for another marriage. I thought that was Heaven's business, anyhow: I thought marriages were made in heaven. I'd rather be the advance agent of a minstrel show." Still, in some fashion or other--and Mrs. Newberry and the papers were satisfied that it was the very best fashion--the thing was accomplished. There was an immediate "Engagement Dinner" given by Ethel; there were other dinners given by Jim; there were luncheons given by friends of Muriel and the Newberrys; then, at last, there was Stainton's bachelor-supper to George Holt and the ushers-to-be, whom Holt had collected, held at Sherry's, whence everybody except the host departed in one of the four socially requisite stages of drunkenness, and so the climax, with the hired church, the hired parson, the frock coats, the staring eyes, the odour of flowers, the demure bridesmaids, and the hired organist playing Wagner and Mendelssohn and "The Voice That Breathed O'er Eden."