They drank their own health in champagne.

Alaric made a speech, in which he said he was quite unworthy of his present happiness, and Gertrude picked up all the bijoux, gold pencil-cases, and silver cream-jugs, which were thrown at her from all sides.

All the men made speeches, and all the women laughed, but the speech of the day was that celebrated one made by Sir Gregory, in which he gave a sketch of Alaric Tudor as the beau ideal of a clerk in the Civil Service.

'His heart,' said he, energetically, 'is at the Weights and Measures;' but Gertrude looked at him as though she did not believe a word of it.
And so Alaric and Gertrude were whisked away, and the wedding guests were left to look sheepish at each other, and take themselves off as best they might.

Sir Gregory, of course, had important public business which precluded him from having the gratification of prolonging his stay at Hampton.