This, my dear young friend, is not a fair question. One of the illustrated weekly papers has already seized hold of the clergyman, and blackened him most unmercifully, by representing him in his cassock performing the marriage service. Let that be sufficient punishment; and, if you please, do not press the query. It is very likely that if Miss Smith had come with a licence to marry Jones, the parson in question, not seeing old Smith present, would have sent off the beadle in a cab to let the old gentleman know what was going on; and would have delayed the service until the arrival of Smith senior. He very likely thinks it his duty to ask all marriageable young ladies, who come without their papa, why their parent is absent; and, no doubt, ALWAYS sends off the beadle for that missing governor. Or, it is very possible that the Duke of Coeurdelion was Mr. What-d'ye-call'im's most intimate friend, and has often said to him, 'What-d'ye-call'im, my boy, my daughter must never marry the Capting. If ever they try at your church, I beseech you, considering the terms of intimacy on which we are, to send off Rattan in a hack cab to fetch me.' In either of which cases, you see, dear Snobling, that though the parson would not have been authorised, yet he might have been excused for interfering. He has no more right to stop my marriage than to stop my dinner, to both of which, as a free-born Briton, I am entitled by law, if I can pay for them. But, consider pastoral solicitude, a deep sense of the duties of his office, and pardon this inconvenient, but genuine zeal. But if the clergyman did in the Duke's case what he would NOT do in Smith's; if he has no more acquaintance with the Coeurdelion family than I have with the Royal and Serene House of Saxe-Coburg Gotha,--THEN, I confess, my dear Snobling, your question might elicit a disagreeable reply, and one which I respectfully decline to give. I wonder what Sir George Tufto would say, if a sentry left his post because a noble lord (not the least connected with the service) begged the sentinel not to do his duty!