"O, no, mama," replied this dutiful girl;
"but what's to become of the favours, and
my wedding-dress, and the breakfast which
is all prepared?"

"Why, my dear," replied Mrs. Smallchange,
"with regard to the favours and the dress,
there's no telling how soon you may want
them yet, and they will keep well enough;
and as to the breakfast, as the things are all
cold, I think it would be a very nice plan to
pack them up in a hamper, and go and have
a pic-nic, to-morrow, at Hampton Court."

"Or Richmond," suggested Mr.
Smallchange.

"Yes; or Kew," said Mrs. Smallchange.

"Or, perhaps, Chisw—"

"At all events," interrupted Mrs. Smallchange,
"we'll go somewhere, and then we;
shall be out of the way; and the carriage;
which was to have taken us to church will
just do; and then Mr. Pluffers will have
time to cool down a little before we meet;
and the people who are asked to the breakfast
must be told when they come that
unavoidable circumstances—yes, that's the
expression—have compelled us to postpone
the marriage, and so," continued this excellent
lady, quite in spirits at a reprieve from
the necessity of taking so decided a step as
had been contemplated on the morrow; " and
so we shall have time to think what is to be
done next."

' Poor Mr. Pluffers," said pretty Miss ,
Anna, complacently, " what will he say when
he hears of all this?"

"At all events," said Mrs. Smallchange, as
she lit her bedroom candle; " at all events—
we'll sleep upon it."

Now Mr. Pluffers, upon the wedding-day
being settled, had, as a matter of etiquette,
been incontinently hustled out of the house;
and, upon the eve of the day in question,
especially had been forbidden to show his
nose on any pretence whatsoever. A practice
which, I am told, must ever be observed
on such occasions, on pain of an infringement
of all the canons of decency and propriety.
It happened, therefore, that the excellent
gentleman was all this time in happy
ignorance of the changes which were going on in
his destiny, and spent the evening in trying
to get on a pair of white gloves which were
several sizes too small for him, and in learning
the whole of the marriage service (the
clergyman's part included) by heart.

The next morning, Mr. and Mrs. Smallchange,
manifesting a most unusual decision
of character, perhaps because it was exercised
in carrying out an act of INdecision,
found themselves still bent upon putting a
stop to the wedding. So, when the coach
which had been hired to convey the whole
party to church, where they were to meet the
bridegroom, arrived, the hamper was hoisted
in, and closely followed by the whole of the
Smallchange family. And the last thing
that was seen of them that day by my
informant (cook, number twenty-four) was at
the corner of the street, where every member
of the family—including the youngest child,
who might be about three years old—leant
out of the window in turns, to give the coachman
contrary directions.

The methodical Mr. Pluffers was at the
church punctually at fifteen minutes past
eleven, which was the appointed hour. Here
he remained till ten minutes to twelve,
passing the time in polite but incoherent
conversation with the clergyman and clerk,
and in reading from beginning to end the
epitaphs on the different monumental tablets
with which the walls of the edifice were
decorated. It is indeed doubtful in the last
degree whether these mural biographies
conveyed any very distinct idea to his distracted
mind beyond a vague and general feeling of
wonder as to how it happened that, though
all people who die are possessed of the whole
of the cardinal virtues, and every quality
calculated to make them unexceptionable members
of society, and faultless in all the
relations of life, there yet happen to be here and
there one or two very unpleasant people in
the world.

At ten minutes to twelve, it being evident
that something must have happened, Mr.
Pluifers left the church, and rushed with
delirious haste to the abode of the faithless
Miss Anna. But to tell of the effect upon
this injured gentleman of the disappearance
of the bride, and upon the invited guests of
the disappearance of the breakfast, would be
to harrow unnecessarily the feelings of the
reader, who yet, if he insists upon having his
sensibilities thus lacerated, is hereby referred
for a more powerful description of such a
scene than the present writer could furnish,
to any one of those paragraphs which appear
(during the autumn season of the year) in
the different provincial newspapers, and
which are usually headed, Singular Scene at
a Wedding.

Whether the excellent Mr. Pluffers was
ultimately made happy by the possession of
Miss Anna's hand, I am unable to affirm with
certainty, but rumours have reached me to
the effect that one morning, after it had been
definitely and finally settled overnight by Mr.
and Mrs. Smallchange, that they never would
or could part with their eldest daughter
during the term of their natural lives,— I have
heard it vaguely rumoured, I say, that the
next morning the whole party adjourned to
the parish church, and that, at the conclusion
of the ceremony which converted Miss
Anna Smallchange into Mrs. Pluffers, and
during which Mr. Pluffers had, from his
accurate knowledge of the service, caused
considerable confusion by putting his oar in
in parts of the ritual in which the voice of
the officiating clergyman ought alone to have
been heard,— it was at the conclusion of the
ceremony, that Mr. Smallchange was heard