sumed
indifference and unconsciousness.

The unlucky (lucky?) man was a young, round-headed Cossack about
twenty years of age, dressed in a dark frock-coat trimmed with scarlet
and gathered like a lady's dress above the waist, which, with a
reckless disregard for his anatomy, was assumed to be six inches below
his armpits. In honour of the extraordinary occasion he had donned a
great white standing collar which projected above his ears, as the
mate of the _Olga_ would say, "like fore to'gallant studd'n' s'ls."
Owing to a deplorable lack of understanding between his cotton
trousers and his shoes they failed to meet by about six inches, and
no provision had been made for the deficiency. The bride was
comparatively an old woman--at least twenty years the young man's
senior, and a _widow_. I thought with a sigh of the elder Mr. Weller's
parting injunction to his son, "Bevare o' the vidders," and wondered
what the old gentleman would say could he see this unconscious
"wictim" walking up to the altar "and thinkin' in his 'art that it was
all wery capital." The bride wore a dress of that peculiar sort of
calico known as "furniture prints," without trimming or ornaments of
any kind. Whether it was cut "bias" or with "gores," I'm sorry to say
I do not know, dress-making being as much of an occult science to
me as divination. Her hair was tightly bound up in a scarlet silk
handkerchief, fastened in front with a little gilt button. As soon as
the church service was concluded the altar was removed to the
middle of the room, and the priest, donning a black silk gown which
contrasted strangely with his heavy cowhide boots, summoned the couple
before him.

After giving to each three lighted candles tied together with blue
ribbon, he began to read in a loud sonorous voice what I supposed to
be the marriage service, paying no attention whatever to stops, but
catching his breath audibly in the midst of a sentence and hurrying on
again with tenfold rapidity. The candidates for matrimony were silent,
but the deacon, who was looking abstractedly out of a window on the
opposite side of the church, interrupted him occasionally with doleful
chanted responses.

At the conclusion of the reading they all crossed themselves devoutly
half a dozen times in succession, and after asking them the decisive
question the priest gave them each a silver ring. Then came more
reading, at the end of which he administered to them a teaspoonful
of wine out