However, he had his hopes that he might be back in time for some of that fun.
And Undy Scott was there.

He and Alaric had fraternized so greatly of late that the latter had, as a matter of course, asked him to his wedding, and Mrs.Woodward had of course expressed her delight at receiving Alaric's friend.

Undy also was a pleasant fellow for a wedding party; he was full of talk, fond of ladies, being no whit abashed in his attendance on them by the remembrance of his bosom's mistress, whom he had left, let us hope, happy in her far domestic retirement.

Undy Scott was a good man at a wedding, and made himself specially agreeable on this occasion.
But the great glory of the day was the presence of Sir Gregory Hardlines.

It was a high honour, considering all that rested on Sir Gregory's shoulders, for so great a man to come all the way down to Hampton to see a clerk in the Weights and Measures married.
Cum tot sustineas, et tanta negotia solus, -- for we may call it 'solus,' Sir Warwick and Mr.Jobbles being sources of more plague than profit in carrying out your noble schemes--while so many things are on your shoulders, Sir Gregory; while you are defending the Civil Service by your pen[ ?], adorning it by your conduct, perfecting it by new rules, how could any man have had the face to ask you to a wedding?
Nevertheless Sir Gregory was there, and did not lose the excellent opportunity which a speech at the breakfast-table afforded him for expressing his opinion on the Civil Service of his country.
And so Gertrude Woodward became Gertrude Tudor, and she and Alaric were whirled away by a post-chaise and post-boy, done out with white bows, to the Hampton Court station; from thence they whisked up to London, and then down to Dover; and there we will leave them.
They were whisked away, having first duly gone through the amount of badgering which the bride and bridegroom have to suffer at the wedding breakfast-table.