about ten minutes to eight
It seems that Papa Penney was not told until an hour before the ceremony that he was to walk up the aisle with the bride on his arm and give her away . This he flatly refused to do . He considered it enough of an affliction to have the wedding in church at all , and it was not until his wife had given her first exhibition of fainting , and Fannie had cried her eyes red , that he apparently yielded . We arrived at the church at about ten minutes to eight , father and Evan having been persuaded to come in recognition of good neighbourhood feeling . The back part of the church was well filled , but the space above the ribbon was painfully empty . The glimmering lamps did little more than reveal the gloom , and the horseshoes gave a strange racing-stable effect . We tried to spread ourselves out as much as possible to fill up , and presently the Ponsonby girls entered with some friends , seemingly astonished at being seated within the barrier , for they had never seen their cards of invitation , and had come as a sort of lark to kill time on a wet evening .