They are to be married at Limmeridge Church, and thank Heaven, not one of the neighbours is to be invited to the ceremony. The only visitor will be our old friend,

Mr.

Arnold, who is to come from Polesdean to give Laura away, her uncle being far too delicate to trust himself outside the door in such inclement weather as we now have. If I were not determined, from this day forth, to see nothing but the bright side of our prospects, the melancholy absence of any male relative of Laura’s, at the most important moment of her life, would make me very gloomy and very distrustful of the future. But I have done with gloom and distrust⁠—that is to say, I have done with writing about either the one or the other in this journal.