The sad and gloomy Emilius let himself be dragged away by his talkative friend, and they reached the cottage just at the moment the cavalcade passed out on their road to the church. The young countryman had on his every-day linen smock, and his only piece of smartness consisted of a pair of leather gaiters, which he had polished up to make look as bright as possible. He was a simple-looking fellow, and seemed shy and awkward. The bride was tanned by the sun, and her face shewed very few remaining traces of youthfulness. She was coarsely and poorly dressed, but her clothes were clean, and a few red and blue silk ribbons, rather faded, were pinned up in bows on her stomacher. The worst part of her figure was her hair, which they had pasted up with a daub of fat and meal, and done into a great cone with hair-pins straight up from her head, on the top of which they had placed the marriage-garland. She tried to laugh and seem in good spirits, but she was ashamed and frightened. The old people followed. His father was in the employ of the house; and the cottage, as well as the furniture and clothes, all betrayed the extremest poverty. A dirty-looking squint-eyed fiddler followed the troop, grinning and smirking, and scraping away on a thing professing to be a violin, which was made up half of wood and half of pasteboard, having three pieces of packthread for strings. The cavalcade halted at the sight of the new landlord. Some saucy-looking servants of the house, young boys and women, began to laugh and cut jokes at the expense of the young couple, particularly the ladies'-maids, who thought themselves a great deal prettier, and saw that they had infinitely smarter clothes. A shudder passed over Emilius. He looked round for Roderick, but he had run away again. An impudent-looking boy, a servant of one of the visitors, who wanted to be thought witty, pressed up to Emilius, and said, "What does your worship say to this brilliant couple? neither of them know where they are to get a piece of bread for to-morrow, and this afternoon they are going to give a ball, and have engaged the services of that good gentleman yonder." "Not know where they are to get bread?" cried Emilius; "can these things be?" "Oh, yes," the other went on; "every one knows how miserably poor they are; but the fellow says he will do his duty to the creature, though she has not a farthing. Yes, indeed, love is all-powerful: the ragamuffins haven't got so much as a bed; they have begged enough small beer to get drunk upon, and they are to sleep to-night in the straw." There was a loud laugh at this, and the two unlucky objects of it did not dare to raise their eyes.