The wedding took place in less than two months after Mr. Fogo's dinner-party. A longer interval would have proved, I believe, fatal to both Peter and Paul, who wore themselves thin over small anxieties, from the trousseau to the cake. Three days before the wedding, for instance, they rowed down to Kit's House and awoke Caleb at 4.30 a.m. by throwing gravel against his window. "Oh, 'tes you," said Caleb, as he thrust open the lattice; "what's amiss now?" "We have been considerin' which of us two es to gi'e Tamsin away." "Toss up." "We _have_ tossed up--scores o' times." "Well?" "The results," said Peter gravely, "es versified." "What?" "Otherwise, various. The results es various--inclinin' to Paul." "Well, let Paul do it." "Peter es oulder," objected Paul. "By dree minnits--which don't fairly count," put in Peter. "Peter," observed Caleb, "looks th' oulder--by full dree minnits." "Paul went to school afore me," said Peter, "by two days--along o' measles." "Look 'ere," decided Caleb, "let Paul gi'e her away, an' you, bein' the better spokesman, can propose th' health o' the bride an' bridegroom." This satisfied them, and so it was arranged at the wedding. I am not going to describe the ceremony--at which I had the privilege of holding my friend's hat--beyond saying that woman, as is usual on these occasions, was a success, and man a dismal failure. There was one exception. When little Susie Clemow, who at Mr. Fogo's express desire was one of the bridesmaids, identified the bridegroom with the strange gentleman who had frightened her in the lane, and burst into loud screams in the middle of the service, I could not sufficiently admire the readiness with which Peter Dearlove produced a packet of brandy-balls from his tail-pocket to comfort her, or the prescience which led him to bring such confectionery to a wedding. At the breakfast, too, which, owing to the dimensions of the Dearloves' cottage, was perforce select, Peter again shone. In proposing the health of Mr. and Mrs. Fogo, he said-- "On an occasion like the present et becomes us not to repine. These things es sent us for our good" (here he looked doubtfully at the cake), "an' wan man's meat es t'other's p'ison, which I hopes" (severely) "you knawed wi'out my tellin' 'ee; an' I shudn' wonder ef Paul an' me was to draw lots wan o' these fine days as to which o' us shud take the pledge--I means, the plunge--an' go an' scarify hissel' 'pon the high menial altar." Immense excitement at this point prevailed among certain elderly spinsters present. "That was a joke," explained the speaker, with a sudden and stony solemnity, "an' I hopes 'twill be tuk in the sperrit in which 'twas meant. An' wi' that I gi'es Tamsin's health an' that o' P. Fogo, Esquire, to whom she has been this day made man an' wife; an' bless them an' their dear offspring!" At this point he was sitting down when Paul leant across and whispered in his ear.