So Miranda Pryor was married to Private Joseph Milgrave on his last
leave. It should have been a romantic wedding but it was not. There were
too many factors working against romance, as even Rilla had to admit. In
the first place, Miranda, in spite of her dress and veil, was such a
flat-faced, commonplace, uninteresting little bride. In the second
place, Joe cried bitterly all through the ceremony, and this vexed
Miranda unreasonably. Long afterwards she told Rilla, "I just felt like
saying to him then and there, 'If you feel so bad over having to marry
me you don't have to.' But it was just because he was thinking all the
time of how soon he would have to leave me."
In the third place, Jims, who was usually so well-behaved in public,
took a fit of shyness and contrariness combined and began to cry at the
top of his voice for "Willa." Nobody wanted to take him out, because
everybody wanted to see the marriage, so Rilla who was a bridesmaid, had
to take him and hold him during the ceremony.
In the fourth place, Sir Wilfrid Laurier took a fit.
Sir Wilfrid was entrenched in a corner of the room behind Miranda's
piano. During his seizure he made the weirdest, most unearthly noises.
He would begin with a series of choking, spasmodic sounds, continuing
into a gruesome gurgle, and ending up with a strangled howl. Nobody
could hear a word Mr. Meredith was saying, except now and then, when Sir
Wilfrid stopped for breath.
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