Then the father gets up, and after a short and pathetic eulogium upon the virtues of that "sweet girl," whom he "loves as his own flesh and blood," thumps the table, and tells the company that "any one who would not treat her properly would be a scoundrel!" Upon this everyone present turns round to look and frown at the wretched villain of a bridegroom, and then they all fall to weeping again. But so strongly has the feeling set in against the new son-in-law, that it is only by a speech full of the deepest pathos, that he can persuade the company that he has not the least thought of murdering, or indeed even assaulting his wife.
At last the mother, bride, and bridesmaids retire to say "Good-bye," and have a good cry altogether upstairs. Then the blessing and the weeping begin again with renewed vigour. As at Vauxhall, they seem to keep the grandest shower for the last. The bridesmaids cry till their noses are quite red, and their hair is as straight as if they had been bathing. And when the time comes for the happy pair to leave, in order to catch the train for Dover, then the mother, father, sisters, brothers, bride, bridegroom, bridesmaids, and every soul in the house, all cry—even down to the old cook "who knowed her ever since she were a babby in long clothes"—as if the young couple were about to be "transported for life" in the literal rather than the figurative sense of the term.
RECOMMENDED TO MERCY.
FIRST AND SECOND WRANGLERS.
COLLEGE FOR LADIES.
Examination Papers.
Examiners.
Doctoress Senna.
Professoress Fanny Sandells. | Professoress Eyeballs, M.A.