Present were Virginia (to give away the bride), Miss Vesper (who looked decidedly odd in a pretty dress given her by Monica), Rhoda Nunn (who appeared to advantage in a costume of quite unexpected appropriateness), Mrs.Widdowson (an imposing figure, evidently feeling that she had got into strange society), and, as friend of the bridegroom, one Mr.Newdick, a musty and nervous City clerk.

Depression was manifest on every countenance, not excepting Widdowson's; the man had such a stern, gloomy look, and held himself with so much awkwardness, that he might have been imagined to stand here on compulsion.

For an hour before going to the church, Monica cried and seemed unutterably doleful; she had not slept for two nights; her face was ghastly.

Virginia's gladness gave way just before the company assembled, and she too shed many tears.
There was a breakfast, more dismal fooling than even this species of fooling is wont to be.

Mr.Newdick, trembling and bloodless, proposed Monica's health; Widdowson, stern and dark as ever, gloomily responded; and then, _that_ was happily over.