It has thus begun, and the husband has declared that he has no such idea.  “If Phipps and Dowdney can come here and eat a bit of mutton, they are very welcome; if not, let them stay away.  And you might as well ask Phipps’s sister; just to have some one to go with you into the drawing-room.”

“I’d much rather go alone, because then I can read,”—­or sleep, we may say.

But her husband has explained that she would look friendless in this solitary state, and therefore Phipps’s sister has been asked.  Then the dinner has progressed down to those costly jellies which have been ordered in a last agony.  There has been a conviction on the minds of both of them that the simple leg of mutton would have been more jolly for them all.  Had those round balls not been carried about by a hired man; had simple mutton with hot potatoes been handed to Miss Phipps by Sarah, Miss Phipps would not have simpered with such unmeaning stiffness when young Dowdney spoke to her.  They would have been much more jolly.  “Have a bit more mutton, Phipps; and where do you like it?” How pleasant it sounds!  But we all know that it is impossible.  My young friend had intended this, but his dinner had run itself away to cold round balls and coloured forms from the pastry-cook.  And so it was with the Crosbie marriage.

The bride must leave the church in a properly appointed carriage, and the postboys must have wedding favours.  So the thing grew; not into noble proportions, not into proportions of true glory, justifying the attempt and making good the gala.  A well-cooked rissole, brought pleasantly to you, is good eating.  A gala marriage, when everything is in keeping, is excellent sport.  Heaven forbid that we should have no gala marriages.  But the small spasmodic attempt, made in opposition to manifest propriety, made with an inner conviction of failure,—­that surely should be avoided in marriages, in dinners, and in all affairs of life.

There were bridesmaids and there was a breakfast.  Both Margaretta and Rosina came up to London for the occasion, as did also a first cousin of theirs, one Miss Gresham, a lady whose father lived in the same county.  Mr Gresham had married a sister of Lord de Courcy’s, and his services were also called into requisition.  He was brought up to give away the bride, because the earl,—­as the paragraph in the newspaper declared,—­was confined at Courcy Castle by his old hereditary enemy, the gout.  A fourth bridesmaid also was procured, and thus there was a bevy, though not so large a bevy as is now generally thought to be desirable.  There were only three or four carriages at the church, but even three or four were something.  The weather was so frightfully cold that the light-coloured silks of the ladies carried with them a show of discomfort.  Girls should be very young to look nice in light dresses on a frosty morning, and the bridesmaids at Lady Alexandrina’s wedding were not very young.  Lady Rosina’s nose was decidedly red.  Lady Margaretta was very wintry, and apparently very cross.  Miss Gresham was dull, tame, and insipid; and the Honourable Miss O’Flaherty, who filled the fourth place, was sulky at finding that she had been invited to take a share in so very lame a performance.