"Don't worry him, gentlemen," cried the vicar; "it's only natural. I've had a good deal of experience with bridegrooms; believe me, it's the general symptom. I felt just the same when I was married myself; but it's nothing to preaching one's first sermon. It's all very well for you to talk, Haggard; but I'll be bound we were both just as miserable as our young friend, though we've forgotten all about it now. But here comes my wife with the sacrificial emblems."
There was no compromise about Mrs. Dodd, as she advanced straight to the bride-groom and proceeded to firmly secure a large white favour to his breast. The rest of the party were soon similarly decorated.
"There's one comfort, we haven't far to go," said Lord Hetton. "I feel we look rather like a parcel of fools."
"At all events, we haven't any time to lose," suggested the vicar, as he looked at his watch; "and, unless we mean to keep the bride waiting, we had better be off."
The whole party passed through the little wicket, crossed the churchyard, which was thronged with the whole population of King's Warren in its Sunday best, and entered the church, and the bridegroom and his friends at once took their place at the altar rails.
If Georgie Warrender had acted with proper decorum, she would have wept upon her father's bosom; but this ill-regulated young person did nothing of the kind. They must have been all very glad to get rid of her at The Warren, for nobody shed a single tear; there was a great deal of running about; the young person from the West End milliner's, her mouth full of pins, issued innumerable orders in a muffled whisper; and Miss Lucy Warrender and her three fellow bridesmaids appeared completely attired, at least half-a-dozen times, to submit themselves to old Warrender's inspection in the drawing-room quite half-an-hour before the carriages drew up at the door to take them to the church.
Georgie was not sufficiently old-fashioned to be married in a bonnet. Even a plain girl looks well in white, and Georgie was not a plain girl by any means. Of course, according to all proper precedent she ought to have rushed into her father's arms, and with floods of tears have bid him a touching farewell. What she did do, however, as she entered the room, was to rapidly advance and affectionately embrace him, then she stepped back and dropped him a low courtesy.
"Shall I do, papa?" she said with a loving smile.
"My dear, you're a credit to all of us," said the old gentleman, and her appearance certainly justified the ecstatic looks of Miss Hood, the four bridesmaids, and the young person from the West End.
Georgie was fully conscious of her privileges. No woman can twice in her life dress in white satin and orange blossoms, and if she mars the effect by the regulation tears, it is quite certain that there must be a screw loose somewhere. There was a great deal of tittering, smiling, and blushing; but the squire glanced at the clock, Lucy handed the bridal bouquet to her cousin, then the squire gave his daughter his arm, and, preceded by the bridesmaids, the little procession entered the carriages, and five minutes' drive brought them to the church.