allowed to take her aunt up into the
bedroom which they were both to occupy. 'Now, Mrs Pipkin, just you
say,' pleaded Ruby, 'how was it possible for any girl to live with an
old man like that?'

'But, Ruby, you might always have gone to live with the young man
instead when you pleased.'

'You mean John Crumb.'

'Of course I mean John Crumb, Ruby.'

'There ain't much to choose between 'em. What one says is all spite;
and the other man says nothing at all.'

'Oh Ruby, Ruby,' said Mrs Pipkin, with solemnly persuasive voice, 'I
hope you'll come to learn some day, that a loving heart is better nor
a fickle tongue,--specially with vittels certain.'

On the following morning the Bungay church bells rang merrily, and
half its population was present to see John Crumb made a happy man. He
himself went out to the farm and drove the bride and Mrs Pipkin into
the town, expressing an opinion that no hired charioteer would bring
them so safely as he would do himself; nor did he think it any
disgrace to be seen performing this task before his marriage. He
smiled and nodded at every one, now and then pointing back with his
whip to Ruby when he met any of his specially intimate friends, as
though he would have said, 'see, I've got her at last in spite of all
difficulties.' Poor Ruby, in her misery under this treatment, would
have escaped out of the cart had it been possible. But now she was
altogether in the man's hands and no escape was within her reach.
'What's the odds?' said Mrs Pipkin as they settled their bonnets in a
room at the Inn just before they entered the church. 'Drat it,--you
make me that angry I'm half minded to cuff you. Ain't he fond o' you?
Ain't he got a house of his own? Ain't he well to do all round?
Manners! What's manners? I don't see nothing amiss in his manners. He
means what he says, and I call that the best of good manners.'

Ruby, when she reached the church, had been too completely quelled by
outward circumstances to take any notice of Joe Mixet, who was
standing there, quite unabashed, with a splendid nosegay in his
button-hole. She certainly had no right on this occasion to complain
of her husband's silence. Whereas she could hardly bring herself to
utter the responses in a voice loud enough for the clergyman to catch
the familiar words, he made his assertions so vehemently that they
were heard throughout the whole building. 'I, John,--take thee Ruby,--
to my wedded wife,--to 'ave and to 'old,--f