s acted on him simply as
tobacco-stoppers, pressing down and condensing the quids within him,
might be imagined to trace a family resemblance between the cherubs in
the church architecture, and the cherub in the white waistcoat. Some
remembrance of old Valentines, wherein a cherub, less appropriately
attired for a proverbially uncertain climate, had been seen conducting
lovers to the altar, might have been fancied to inflame the ardour of
his timber toes. Be it as it might, he gave his moorings the slip, and
followed in chase.

The cherub went before, all beaming smiles; Bella and John Rokesmith
followed; Gruff and Glum stuck to them like wax. For years, the wings
of his mind had gone to look after the legs of his body; but Bella had
brought them back for him per steamer, and they were spread again.

He was a slow sailer on a wind of happiness, but he took a cross cut
for the rendezvous, and pegged away as if he were scoring furiously
at cribbage. When the shadow of the church-porch swallowed them up,
victorious Gruff and Glum likewise presented himself to be swallowed up.
And by this time the cherubic parent was so fearful of surprise, that,
but for the two wooden legs on which Gruff and Glum was reassuringly
mounted, his conscience might have introduced, in the person of that
pensioner, his own stately lady disguised, arrived at Greenwich in a
car and griffins, like the spiteful Fairy at the christenings of the
Princesses, to do something dreadful to the marriage service. And truly
he had a momentary reason to be pale of face, and to whisper to Bella,
'You don't think that can be your Ma; do you, my dear?' on account of
a mysterious rustling and a stealthy movement somewhere in the remote
neighbourhood of the organ, though it was gone directly and was heard no
more. Albeit it was heard of afterwards, as will afterwards be read in
this veracious register of marriage.

Who taketh? I, John, and so do I, Bella. Who giveth? I, R. W. Forasmuch,
Gruff and Glum, as John and Bella have consented together in holy
wedlock, you may (in short) consider it done, and withdraw your two
wooden legs from this temple. To the foregoing purport, the Minister
speaking, as directed by the Rubric, to the People, selectly represented
in the present instance by G. and G. above mentioned.

And now, the church-porch having swallowed up Bella Wilfer for ever and
ever, had it not in its power to relinquish that young woman, but slid
into the h