I durst not look at my poor little Cynthia. But somehow I felt that she was trembling and deadly pale, and ready to sink to the ground under this humiliation to her native delicacy. I fear that I was of a much coarser grain. I had suffered too much from the world already to be easily bowed with a sense of shame. "Needs must when the devil drives," was a good enough motto for me. We were in a pretty tight corner, and if we ever came out of it at all, we must expect to lose a little of our tender skins in doing so. My little one was most monstrous brave. Having recovered the possession of herself, she set her teeth and went through the thing gallantly. I'faith she was of a good mettle. In spite of Mrs. Blodgett's opinion of my worth, my little miss answered the all-important query in such a clear affirmative voice as never was heard, and entered into vows of a sort that argued some degree of rashness on her part. Even at the time I was inclined to raise a doubt of her ability to be the equal of them. Nor hath aught subsequently transpired to cause me to forego this estimate of the matter. When we had been duly put through these trials, we were led into the vestry to write our names in the marriage register. "Oh, Jack," whispers Cynthia, as we went, "whatever shall we do? I am sure it cannot be legal." "I am sure I don't know," says I. "What a folly of mine not to have thought of it sooner!" "It was my place to think of it," says Cynthia. "The folly is mine." "No, not at all," says I. "What have you to do with it, a chit as you are? The folly is mine, I tell you." "Then I tell you it's not," says Cynthia flatly, and stamping her petulant shoe on the very steps of the altar. CHAPTER IX WE GO UPON OUR WEDDING TOUR I am sure it is expected of me to improve this occasion with a few sage remarks, for could anything have been more ominous to the prosperity of our married life? But I hope I have too much chivalry in me to say to what extent this evil presage has been borne out since, and I dare Mrs. Cynthia to do so. _Revenons à nos moutons_, a phrase I think that always looks better in French. We got through all these important matters at last, even to the forging of the honoured names of Jane Jones and John Smith, or Jane Smith and John Jones, I forget precisely which, in the parish register. Then having vailed the clerk with the parson's two-shilling-bit, and having thanked and bid farewell to our kind benefactors, we moved out of the church amid the acclamation of the whole female and juvenile population of the village, and got us with some speed upon our wedding-tour. Now we had made about half-a-mile along the highway at a round pace, when Cynthia to her great concern discovered that she had carried away upon her finger the ring that Mrs. Blodgett had borrowed from a neighbour. "Oh, this will never do," says she. "We can never rob such kind honest people."