VIII + 

So, for the seventh time, I asked Stella to marry me. Nearly every fellow I knew had done as much, particularly Peter Blagden; and it is always a mistake to appear unnecessarily reserved or exclusive. And this time in declining⁠—with a fluency that bespoke considerable practice⁠—she informed me that, as the story books have it, she was shortly to be wedded to another. + 

And Peter Blagden clapped the pinnacle upon my anguish by asking me to be the best man. I knew even then whose vanity and whose sense of the appropriate had put him up to it.⁠ ⁠… + 

“For I haven’t a living male relative of the suitable age except two second cousins that I don’t see much of⁠—praise God!” said Peter, fervently; “and Hugh Van Orden looks about half-past ten, whereas I class John Charteris among the lower orders of vermin.” + 

I consented to accept the proffered office and the incidental stickpin; and was thus enabled to observe from the inside this episode of Stella’s life, and to find it quite like other weddings. + 

Something like this: + 

“Look here,” a perspiring and fidgety Peter protested, at the last moment, as we lurked in the gloomy vestry with not a drop left in either flask; “look here, Henderson hasn’t blacked the soles of these blessed shoes. I’ll look like an ass when it comes to the kneeling part⁠—like an ass, I tell you! Good heavens, they’ll look like tombstones!” + 

“If you funk now,” said I, severely, “I’ll never help you get married again. Oh, sainted Ebenezer in bliss, and whatever have I done with that ring? No, it’s here all right, but you are on the wrong side of me again. And there goes the organ⁠—Good God, Peter, look at her! simply look at her, man! Oh, you lucky devil! you lucky jackass!” + 

I spoke enviously, you understand, simply to encourage him. + 

Followed a glaring of lights, a swishing of fans, a sense that Peter was not keeping step with me, and the hum of densely packed, expectant humanity; a blare of music; then Stella, an incredible vision with glad, frightened eyes. My shoulders straightened, and I was not out of temper any longer. The organist was playing softly, “Oh, Promise Me,” and I was thinking of the time, last January, that Stella and I heard The Bostonians, and how funny Henry Clay Barnabee was.⁠ ⁠… “⁠—so long as ye both may live?” ended the bishop. + 

“I will,” poor Peter quavered, with obvious uncertainty about it. + 

And still one saw in Stella’s eyes unutterable happiness and fear, but her voice was tranquil. I found time to wonder at its steadiness, even though, just about this time, I resonantly burst a button off one of my new gloves. I fancy they must have been rather tight. + 

“And thereto,” said Stella, calmly, “I give thee my troth.” + 

And subsequently they were Mendelssohned out of church to the satisfaction of a large and critical audience. I came down the aisle with Stella’s only sister⁠—who afterward married the Marquis d’Arlanges⁠—and found Lizzie very entertaining later in the evening.⁠ ⁠… + 