res as witnesses.

This done, one of the younger married women present takes the bride
and leads her across to Silius who holds her right hand in his. Both
repeat a prescribed formula of words, and all the company present
exclaims "Good luck to you!" and offers such other congratulations as
seem fit. A wedding-dinner is held, generally, but not necessarily, in
the house of the bride, and a wedding-cake, served upon bay-leaves, is
cut up and divided among the guests. It is now evening, and a
procession is formed to bring Marcia home to the house of Silius. In
front will march the torchbearers and what we should call "the band,"
consisting in these circumstances of a number of persons playing upon
the flageolet. Silius goes through a pretence of carrying off Marcia
by force--another practice reminiscent of the ancient time when men
won their brides by methods similar to those of the Australian
aborigine with his waddy. Both groom and bride are important people,
and along the streets there is many a decoration; many a window and
doorway is filled with spectators; shouts, not always of the most
discreet, are heard from all sides, and loud above all rings the
regular _Io Talasse_--whatever that may have meant, for no man now
knows, and almost certainly no one knew then. In the midst of the
procession Marcia, followed by bearers of her spindle and distaff, is
being led by two pretty boys, while a third carries a torch; Silius
meanwhile is scattering nuts or walnuts, or _confetti_ made like them,
to the crowd. Arrived on the Caelian, the bride is once more seized
and lifted over the threshold; when inside the hall, Silius presents
her with fire and water in token of her common share in the household
and its belongings; and she offers prayers to various old-fashioned
goddesses who are supposed to preside over the introduction to married
life.

If we have given with some particularity the orthodox proceedings of a
fashionable wedding, it must again be remembered that not all weddings
were fashionable, and that one or other of these details might be
omitted as taste or circumstances required. Among the poorer folk
there must often have been practically no ceremony at all beyond the
"bringing home." And if there are certain items which appear to us
trivial and meaningless, it is probably unfamiliarity which breeds our
contempt. Perhaps a far-off generation may wonder how civilised folk
in the twentieth century could perform absu