IV.
THE DEATH-BRIDE.
“She shall be such
As walk’d your first queen’s ghost”
Shakspeare.
The summer had been uncommonly fine, and the baths crowded with company beyond all comparison: but still the public rooms were scarce ever filled, and never gay. The nobility and military associated only with those of their own rank, and the citizens contented themselves by slandering both parties. So many partial divisions necessarily proved an obstacle to a general and united assembly.
Even the public balls did not draw the beau-monde together, because the proprietor of the baths appeared there bedizened with insignia of knighthood; and this glitter, added to the stiff manners of this great man’s family, and the tribe of lackeys in splendid liveries who constantly attended him, compelled the greater part of the com-
