"Where then, madam," I said, "is the bride?--and who, I pray you, is the bridegroom?" "The bridegroom is the Viscount Lessingholm. This maiden is the bride." "But Alice Snowton, my lady!--I did think it was your honourable grandchild who was to be united to this noble gentleman." "And so it is--and so it is! She is Alice Snowton no longer. Our good friend, Master Snowton, the steward on my daughter Pevensey's Wiltshire manor, was good enough to adopt her as his niece; and for her better concealment we placed her in the charge of a person whose character for meekness and simplicity was too notorious to raise suspicion of his being concerned in such a plot. Even to herself, till lately, her parentage was unknown, as Master Snowton kept well the secret." "And one other question," I said; "the child to whom I became bound as godfather?" "'Tis the same. This is the poor Lucy Hesseltine, whose orphanship you witnessed in that lone and yet comfortable death." The lady Lucy Hesseltine, or rather Alice Snowton, for by that name I loved her best, did throw her arms about my neck, and kissed my cheek, and said I had been a kind godfather to her, yea, had been a father to her, and my excellent wife a mother. At this my heart was much moved, and I saw tears come to the eyes of several of the bystanders, but no tear came to the eyes of the great lady herself. "Let this be enough," she said. "Let us finish what we have yet to do." And thereupon, all being ready and in their due places, I began; but when I came to the question--"Lucy Hesseltine, wilt thou have this man to be thy lawful husband?" a sudden noise in the courtyard under the window made me pause; but the great lady commanded me with a frown to go on, and I concluded the question, and received in reply a sweet but audible "yes." But the noise was again repeated, and the assistants sprang to their feet, for it was the sound of the sharp shooting off of pistols. "Stir not for your lives till the ceremony is over!" cried the great lady; and I hurried with trembling lips over the remainder of the service. A loud voice in the yard was heard amid the trampling of much horse. "In the king's name, surrender!" the voice said. "We have a warrant here, and soldiers!" "Forasmuch as Frederick Fitzoswald and Lucy Hesseltine" (I said as calmly as I could, though with my heart quaking within me), "have consented together in holy wedlock, and have witnessed the same before God and this company and thereto have given and pledged their troth either to other, and have declared the same by giving and receiving of a ring, and by joining of hands--I pronounce that they be man and wife together!"