The procession was led by a few youths and maidens, with whom were all the musicians of the village; while others, walking immediately before the bride and her two bride maidens, strewed the ground, as they went, with rushes and herbs. The bridegroom, in a suit of violet-coloured cloth, guarded with velvet of the deepest crimson, and with a falling collar of worked linen, followed, supported by his bridesmen, in fit bravery of apparel; next came a group of relations, male and female, led by the old franklin himself, with his grave and comely wife, and the men and maids of his household brought up the rear of the procession. It was met at the churchyard gate by Parson Noble and his wife,--she joining old Mrs. Blount, and the good vicar, in his snowy surplice, taking place at the head of it, immediately between the herb-strewers and the bridal party; and now a gravity and silence succeeded, and in decency and order all entered the church, and proceeded with quiet steps to the altar. There, the sweet and solemn service, which binds together for “better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, till death do part,” was reverently and impressively performed by Noble, his own deep and mellow tones being only interrupted by the manly voice of the bridegroom, and the faltering accents of the shy and trembling bride, as they gave utterance to their heart’s true and hallowed responses. No sooner was the ceremony ended than the bells, which had, for a while, been silent, struck out with the wedding peal; and as the new married couple came forth into the churchyard the air was rent with the joyous acclamations of the crowd without; and the procession returned in nearly the same order as it had left the house of the worthy franklin, only, according to the good custom of the time, the parson made one of the wedding party, and partook of the marriage feast. Such of the old as could not walk abroad, stood leaning on staves, or sat dim-eyed on the stones before their doors, to see or hear the bridal train pass down; for each of these Parson Noble and the franklin had a kind word as they went by, returned by the benison and good wishes for the bride, who had herself no voice for any one, and, supported on her husband’s arm, scarce saw her path through eyes that were filling from a happy bosom’s overflow. We shall not detain our reader by describing the dinner at Master Blount’s; right plentiful was the cheer. Parson Noble said a grace in rhyme, out of old Tom Tusser’s book of Husbandry, to the great contentment of his hospitable host, that being the one book by which, after his Bible, Blount squared his honest life. “God sendeth and giveth both mouth and the meat, And blesseth us all with his benefits great; Then serve we the God, who so richly doth give, Show love to our neighbours, and lay for to live.”