t and weary, on foot. "If you want to catch them up you had
better take an 'ansom," said one of the white-neckclothed men who were
busy preparing the wedding breakfast. Lizzie scarcely knew what a
hansom was; but she submitted to be put into one, and to get with much
difficulty a shilling out of her purse to pay it. The sudden whirl,
the jar and noise, the difficult getting out and in, the struggle to
pursue that shilling into a corner of her purse among the pennies and
sixpences, aided in confusing her brain utterly. She rushed up the
steps of the church, which were crowded with idlers, not knowing what
she did. The organ was pealing through the place, making a little storm
of sound under the gallery, as she rushed in desperate, meeting the
fine procession, the bride in all that glory which Lizzie had dreamt of,
which she had been so reluctant to spoil; her white dress rustling over
the red cloth that had been laid down in the aisle, her white veil flowing
over her modest countenance, her arm in that of her bridegroom; all
whiteness, peace, and sweet emotion, joy touched with trembling and a
thousand soft regrets. Chatty came along slowly, her soft eyes cast
down, her soul floating in that ecstasy which is full of awe and solemn
thoughts. Dick's eyes were upon her, and the eyes of all, but hers saw
nothing save the wonderful event that had come to pass, the boundary
between the old and the new upon which she stood. And Lizzie had
forgotten everything that could be called reason or coherence in her
thoughts. She forgot her doubts, her scruples, her sense of the misery
she might make, her uncertainty as to whether it might be needful at
all. At this moment of bewildering excitement she had but one idea.
She fell down upon her knees before them in the aisle, and caught at
Chatty's white dress and the folds of her floating veil. "Oh, Miss
Chatty, stop, stop, leave go of his arm: for he is married already,
and his wife is living." She lifted her eyes, and there appeared round
her a floating sea of horror-stricken faces, faces that she knew in the
foreground, and floating farther off, as if in the air, in the distance,
one she knew still better. Lizzie gave a shriek which rang through the
church. "His wife is living, and she is HERE."

CHAPTER XLIV.

The wedding morning had been confusing and full of many occupations, as
wedding mornings always are. Chatty, left in the quiet of her room, had
received innumerable lit