The Wedding

No more, no more, much honour aye betide
The lofty bridegroom, and the lovely bride;
That all of their succeeding days may say,
Each day appears like to a wedding day.

BRAITHWAITE.

Notwithstanding the doubts and demurs of Lady Lillycraft, and all the
grave objections that were conjured up against the month of May, yet the
Wedding has at length happily taken place. It was celebrated at the
village church in presence of a numerous company of relatives and
friends, and many of the tenantry. The squire must needs have something
of the old ceremonies observed on the occasion; so at the gate of the
churchyard, several little girls of the village, dressed in white, were
in readiness with baskets of flowers, which they strewed before the
bride; and the butler bore before her the bride-cup, a great silver
embossed bowl, one of the family reliques from the days of the hard
drinkers. This was filled with rich wine, and decorated with a branch of
rosemary, tied with gay ribands, according to ancient custom.

"Happy is the bride that the sun shines on," says the old proverb; and
it was as sunny and auspicious a morning as heart could wish. The bride
looked uncommonly beautiful; but, in fact, what woman does not look
interesting on her wedding-day? I know no sight more charming and
touching than that of a young and timid bride, in her robes of virgin
white, led up trembling to the altar. When I thus behold a lovely girl,
in the tenderness of her years, forsaking the house of her fathers and
the home of her childhood, and, with the implicit, confiding, and the
sweet self-abandonment which belong to woman, giving up all the world
for the man of her choice; when I hear her, in the good old language of
the ritual, yielding herself to him "for better for worse, for richer
for poorer, in sickness and in health; to love, honour, and obey, till
death us do part," it brings to my mind the beautiful and affecting
self-devotion of Ruth:--"Whither thou goest I will go, and where thou
lodgest I will lodge; thy people shall be my people, and thy God my
God."

The fair Julia was supported on the trying occasion by Lady Lillycraft,
whose heart was overflowing with its wonted sympathy in all matters of
love and matrimony. As the bride approached the altar, her face would be
one moment covered with blushes, and the next deadly pale; and she
seemed almost ready to shrink from sight among her female companions.

I do not know what it is that makes every one serious, and, as, it were,
awestruck at a marriage ceremony, which is generally considered as an
occasion of festivity and rejoicing. As the ceremony was performing, I
observed many a rosy face among the country girls turn pale, and