Rural Wedding--Our Late Arrival Delays the Ceremony Until Next
Morning--The Ball--We Tramp Across the Fields to the Church--After
the Marriage, Feasting and Dancing.

The composure with which a Filipino girl enters matrimony
is astounding. There are no tears, no self-conscious blushes,
none of the charming shyness that encompasses an American girl as
a garment. It is a contradictory state of affairs, I must admit,
for this same American girl is a self-reliant creature, accustomed
to the widest range of action and liberty, while the matter-of-fact,
self-possessed Filipina has been reared to find it impossible to step
across the street without attendance. But the free, liberty-loving
American yields shyly to her captor, while the sedateness of the
prospective matron has already taken possession of the dusky sister.

Filipino marriages, among the upper class, are accompanied
by receptions and feasts like our own, but differ greatly in
the comparatively insignificant part played by the contracting
parties. Whereas, in an American wedding, the whole object of calling
all these people together seems to be a desire to silhouette the
bride and groom against the festive background, one comes away from
a Filipino celebration with a feeling that an excuse was needed
for assembling a multitude and permitting them to enjoy themselves,
and that the bridal pair unselfishly lent themselves to the occasion.

Most weddings take place about half-past six or seven in the evening;
and immediately after the religious ceremony in the church, all the
invited guests adjourn to the home of a relative (usually, but not
necessarily, the nearest kinsman of the bride), where supper is served
and is followed by a ball.

On these occasions, except for the candles on the altar, the church is
unlighted, and in its cavernous darkness the footfalls of a gathering
crowd ring on the stone floor, and the hum of voices rolls up into
the arching gloom of the roof.

There are no pews, but two rows of benches, facing each other, up the
middle length of the edifice, offer seats to the upper-class people,
who seem chiefly interested in preserving the spotlessness of their
gala attire. No attempt at exclusiveness is made, and a horde of
babbling, gesticulating, lower-class natives surges to and fro at
the rear, awaiting the bride.

Presently, to the clangor of half a dozen huge bells, she sweeps in,
accompanied by her _madrina_, or chief witness. They take