The important duties of the toilette passed under her inspection. The white silk dress was her own gift; but that was nothing to the attention which devoted itself to the graceful adjustment of its drapery. It is in our nature to be much more grateful for that which flatters than for that which serves us—perhaps because the latter implies the superiority of another, while the former insinuates our own. The bride looked very pretty—with her golden hair allowed to hang beneath the veil, and a cheek whose blushes were of the most orthodox brightness; and the bridegroom appeared as happy as awkwardness and confusion could indicate. "But after all," thought Francesca, "A wedding is a melancholy affair. How much responsibility is in those few and scarcely audible words which give away your very life to the keeping of another! What a sudden change is wrought in existence!—a change whose consequences none may foresee. It is standing on the threshold of youth, and flinging its flowers behind you. The ideal merges at once in the real, and the dream, at least, of love is over. Well if the substance, depart not with the shadow!"
With irrepressible emotion Francesca thought upon the desolate home now left for the father: the accustomed music of Lucy's step was gone
