A Marriage

The wedding of the farmer's daughter has taken place. We had hoped
it would have been in the little chapel of our house, but it seems
some special permission was necessary, and they applied for it too
late. They all said, "This is the Constitution. There would have
been no difficulty before!" the lower classes making the poor
Constitution the scapegoat for everything they don't like. So as it
was impossible for us to climb up to the church where the wedding
was to be, we contented ourselves with seeing the procession pass.
It was not a very large one, for, it requiring some activity to go
up, all the old people remained at home. It is not etiquette for
the bride's mother to go, and no unmarried woman can go to a
wedding--I suppose for fear of its making her discontented with her
own position. The procession stopped at our door, for the bride to
receive our congratulations. She was dressed in a shot silk, with a
yellow handkerchief, and rows of a large gold chain. In the
afternoon they sent to request us to go there. On our arrival we
found them dancing out of doors, and a most melancholy affair it
was. All the bride's sisters were not to be recognised, they had
cried so. The mother sat in the house, and could not appear. And
the bride was sobbing so, she could hardly stand! The most
melancholy spectacle of all to my mind was, that the bridegroom was
decidedly tipsy. He seemed rather affronted at all the distress.
We danced a Monferrino; I with the bridegroom; and the bride crying
the whole time. The company did their utmost to enliven her by
firing pistols, but without success, and at last they began a series
of yells, which reminded me of a set of savages. But even this
delicate method of consolation failed, and the wishing good-bye
began. It was altogether so melancholy an affair that Madame B.
dropped a few tears, and I was very near it, particularly when the
poor mother came out to see the last of her daughter, who was
finally dragged off between her brother and uncle, with a last
explosion of pistols. As she lives quite near, makes an excellent
match, and is one of nine children, it really was a most desirable
marriage, in spite of all the show of distress. Albert was so
discomfited by it, that he forgot to kiss the bride as he had
intended to do, and therefore went to call upon her yesterday, and
found her very smiling in her new house, and supplied the omission.
The cook came home from the wedding, declaring she was cured of any
wish to marry--but I would not recommend any man to act upon that
threat and make her an offer. In a couple of days we had some rolls
of the bride's first baking, which they call Madonnas. The
musicians, it seems, were in the same state as the bridegroom, for,