stared the vulgar multitude, too ignorant for anything but rapt wonderment.  From the temple of high-priced worship the celebrants have passed, in a still more exclusive body, to a residence where a banquet has been prepared by a man who generally makes ice cream for a living, and where a dazzling display of wedding presents has been uncovered to the careless gaze.  Then the train bears away the twain of one foolish flesh, and the farce is over.

OF COURSE IT WAS A FARCE.

The elect read the newspapers next morning with a smile.  None but he of the vulgar multitude was hoodwinked.  The man and the woman have spent all their money to purchase a “swell wedding.”  The presents were hired, so were most of the “hacks.”  The florist has got part of his money.  The couple, six months afterward, are “beating” some poor landlady out of their board, and the man, in all likelihood, will never again be heard of.  But the women have been intensely agitated by the event.  They have never thought about the subsequent aspects of the case.

NO ONE OF THE SAME “SET”

would be willing to spare a single “hack” or one double camellia.  Why did the young man and the young woman do it?  They did it principally out of vanity, in imitation of some rich person who desired to distribute his money among hard-working folks and at the same time create a feeling of envy among his fellows and “please the women folk.”

LET US HAVE THE MANHOOD AND THE WOMANHOOD,

if we have five hundred or a thousand dollars, to buy those necessaries of life which will enable us to live without debt after we are settled for life.  We are sailing out of the harbor.  Would it not be ridiculous for us to heave into the water our provisions, as a symbol of our delirious joy?—­would not our ship be a ship of death when we reached the middle of the sea?  There is just as much joy in a simple wedding which has properly shown our respect for the event as the third in importance of all which will punctuate our history.  We have been born; we will die;

WE NOW MARRY.

“A man finds himself seven years older, the day after his marriage,” says Lord Bacon.  “Men should keep their eyes wide open before marriage, and half shut afterwards,” says Madame Scuderie.  “Marriage is a feast,” says Colton, “where the grace is sometimes better than the dinner.”  “Mistress,” cries Shakspeare, “know yourself; down on your knees, and thank heaven, fasting, for a good man’s love.  For I must tell you friendly in your ear,—­sell when you can; you are not for all markets.”  “To love early and marry late,” says Richter, “is to hear a lark singing at dawn, and at night to eat it roasted for supper.”  “Marriages are best of dissimilar material,” says Theodore Parker.