uddled line across the chancel. They were my
acquaintances of the poor streets, or persons in a precisely similar
condition of life, and were now come to their marriage-ceremony in just
such garbs as I had always seen them wear: the men in their loafers'
coats, out at elbows, or their laborers' jackets, defaced with grimy toil;
the women drawing their shabby shawls tighter about their shoulders, to
hide the raggedness beneath; all of them unbrushed, unshaven, unwashed,
uncombed, and wrinkled with penury and care; nothing virgin-like in the
brides, nor hopeful or energetic in the bridegrooms;--they were, in short,
the mere rags and tatters of the human race, whom some east-wind of evil
omen, howling along the streets, had chanced to sweep together into an
unfragrant heap. Each and all of them, conscious of his or her individual
misery, had blundered into the strange miscalculation of supposing that
they could lessen the sum of it by multiplying it into the misery of
another person. All the couples (and it was difficult, in such a confused
crowd, to compute exactly their number) stood up at once, and had
execution done upon them in the lump, the clergyman addressing only small
parts of the service to each individual pair, but so managing the larger
portion as to include the whole company without the trouble of repetition.
By this compendious contrivance, one would apprehend, he came dangerously
near making every man and woman the husband or wife of every other; nor,
perhaps, would he have perpetrated much additional mischief by the
mistake; but, after receiving a benediction in common, they assorted
themselves in their own fashion, as they only knew how, and departed to
the garrets, or the cellars, or the unsheltered street-corners, where
their honeymoon and subsequent lives were to be spent. The parson smiled
decorously, the clerk and the sexton grinned broadly, the female attendant
tittered almost aloud, and even the married parties seemed to see
something exceedingly funny in the affair; but for my part, though
generally apt enough to be tickled by a joke, I laid it away in my memory
as one of the saddest sights I ever looked upon.

Not very long afterwards, I happened to be passing the same venerable
Cathedral, and heard a clang of joyful bells, and beheld a bridal party
coming down the steps towards a carriage and four horses, with a portly
coachman and two postilions, that waited at the gate. The bridegroom's
mien ha