constant resolution. What with the haste and perspiration, I tore the thumb completely out of the left glove.

Never mind; no time to mend, in spite of the proverb.

The bride came down-stairs, cool, white, and delicious as an orange blossom. She was helped into one carriage; Fred and I entered another.

"I hope you feel cool," I said to Fred.

"I hope you do," he retorted.

I have always laid the catastrophe which followed to the first mistake in having to fly home for my neck-tie. I was disconcerted by that, and I couldn't exactly get concerted again.

I don't know what happened after the carriage stopped at the church door—I must take the report of my friends for it. They say that I[80] bolted at the last moment, and followed the bride up one aisle instead of the groom up the other, as I should have done. But I was perfectly calm and collected. Oh, yes, that was why, when we attempted to form in front of the altar, I insisted on standing next to Belle, and when I was finally pushed into my place by the irate Fred, I kept diving forward every time the clergyman said anything, trying to take the bride's hand, and responding, "Belle, I take thee to be my lawful, wedded," answering, "I do," loudly, to every question, even to that "Who gives this woman?" etc., until every man, woman, and child in church was tittering and giggling, and the holy man had to come to a full pause, and request me to realize that it was not I who was being married.

[80]

"I do. With all my worldly goods I thee endow," was my reply to his reminder.

"For Heaven's sake subside, or I'll thrash you within an inch of your life when I get out of this," whispered Fred.

Dimly mistrusting that I was on the wrong track, I turned and seized Mrs. Marigold by the hand, and began to feel in my pocket for a ring, because I saw the groom taking one out of his pocket.

The giggling and tittering increased; somebody—father or the constable—took me by the shoulder and marched me out of that; after which, I suppose, the ceremony was duly con[81]cluded. I only know that somebody knocked me down about five minutes afterward—I have been told that it was the bridegroom who did it—and that all the books 

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