deplorable scene, whenever we are married. It will be much more like a funeral, than a wedding.

And they’ll all hate me for taking her away!’

His honest face, as he looked at me with a serio-comic shake of his head, impresses me more in the remembrance than it did in the reality, for I was by this time in a state of such excessive trepidation and wandering of mind, as to be quite unable to fix my attention on anything. On our approaching the house where the Misses Spenlow lived, I was at such a discount in respect of my personal looks and presence of mind, that Traddles proposed a gentle stimulant in the form of a glass of ale.

This having been administered at a neighbouring public-house, he conducted me, with tottering steps, to the Misses Spenlow’s