"Yes, I see it."
"Well, now, what I want to say is, that I really hope there won't be anything longer and harder and more circumlocutory to be got through with on the occasion than just what's in the prayer-book, for that's all I can stand. I can't stand prayer-book with the variations, now I really can't."
"Well, Jim, what makes you think there will be prayer-book with the variations?"
"Oh, well, I attended a ritualistic wedding once, and there was such an amount of processing and chanting, and ancient and modern improvements, that it was just like a show. There were the press reporters elbowing and pushing to get the best places to write it up for the papers, and, for my part, I think it's in confounded bad taste, and I couldn't stand it; you know, now, I'm a nervous fellow, and if I've got to take part in the exercises, they'll have to 'draw it mild,' or Allie and I will have to secede and take it by ourselves. I couldn't go such a thing as that wedding; I never should come out alive."
"Well, Jim, I don't believe there's any reason for apprehension. In the first place, the ceremony, as to its mode and form, always is supposed to be conducted according to the preferences of the bride's family, and we all of us should be opposed to anything which would draw remark and comment, as being singular and unusual on such an occasion."
"I'm glad to hear that," said Jim.
"And then, Jim, Mr. St. John's uncle, Dr. Gracey, is to perform the ceremony, and he is one of the most respected of the conservative Episcopal clergymen in New York; and it is entirely out of the question to suppose that he would take part in anything of the sort you fear, or which would excite comment as an innovation. Then, again, I think Mr. St. John himself has so much natural refinement and just taste that he would not wish his own wedding to become a theme for gossip and a gazing stock for the curious."
"Well, I didn't know about St. John; I was a little afraid we should be obliged to do something or other, because they did it in the catacombs, or the Middle Ages, or in Edward the Sixth's time, or some such dodge. I thought I'd just make sure."
"Well, I think Mr. St. John has gone as far in those directions as he ever will go. He has been living alone up to this winter. He has formed his ideas by himself in solitude. Now he will have another half to himself; he will see in part through the eyes, and feel through the heart, of a sensible and discreet woman—for Angie is that. The society he has met at our house in such men as Dr. Campbell and others, has enlarged his horizon,—given him new points of vision,—so that I think the too great tendencies he may have had in certain directions have been insensibly checked."
"I wish they may," said Jim, "for he is a good fellow, and so much like one of the primitive Christians that I really want him to get all the credit that belongs to him."