The wedding-morning, with all its flutter, flurry, and excitement! The bride pale, but collected; Nelly and her sister bridesmaids appealing vainly to one another for help; hair, that at any other time would fall into plait, or bandeau, or roll, with such ease, now obstinate and awkward, and requiring to be attended to again and again; hair-pins becoming scarce, and, where plentiful, given to bending; eyes with a disposition to look red; hands ditto—for it is winter; while, as if out of sheer spite, more than one nose follows suit, and is decidedly raw and chappy.

“O, do, do, do fetch a knife!” whimpered Nelly. “I shall never be dressed in time! I must have a knife to open these horrible old hooks, that have flattened down when ’Lisbeth ran an iron along the back plait. O, what shall I do? I shall never be ready! And the old chilblains have swelled up on my heels, and I can’t get on those little satin boots; and I can’t go in my others, because they haven’t got high heels. I could sit down and have a good cry—that I could! Here, ’Lisbeth—’Lisbeth! why don’t Miss l’Aiguille come and help some of us?”

“Lor, miss, how you do talk!” cried the excited ’Lisbeth. “And is that what you called me back for? Miss Luggle’s a-doing of Miss Lorror, and couldn’t leave her, was it ever so. There, don’t stop me, miss; they’re waiting for pins, and there’ll be no end of a row if I don’t go.”

“But, please, come and do my back hair, ’Lisbeth,” cried one of the bridesmaids—a cousin, who was staying in the house.

“Lor, miss, I can’t. You must ask Miss Nelly!” cried ’Lisbeth, vainly struggling to get out, for Nelly was holding on with both hands to her dress, and dragging her back.

“There, do let go, Miss Nelly—pray! Here, miss, ask your cousin to leave go, and come and do it. She’ll put it right—beautiful!”

“But she has done it twice,” cried the other; “and see how it has come tumbling down again; it’s worse now than if it hadn’t been touched!”

“I don’t care; I shan’t try any more,” whimpered Nelly. “I can’t get dressed decent. But you’ll all have to wait for me; for I’m sure Charley Vining won’t go to be married if I ain’t there.”

“For goodness gracious’ sake, now just look there, Miss Nelly, at what you’ve been and done! You’ve pulled all the gathers out of my frock!”

“Don’t care!” said Nelly, throwing herself down, half-dressed, into a chair. “Fasten ’em up again: you’ve got lots of pins.”

“’Lisbeth—’Lisbeth!” was shouted from the passage, and the girl disappeared.

We have nothing to do with the bride’s mental sufferings at present, the remarks now made appertaining to dress alone; but she must have borne something at the hands of Miss l’aiguille and her staff of assistants, before, tall, dark, and handsome, she stood amidst a diaphanous cloud of drapery, which floated from and around her, descending, as it were, from the orange wreath twined amidst her magnificent raven ringlets.

Miss l’aiguille clasped her hands, and went down upon one knee in an ecstasy of admiration at the glorious being she had made, as a gentle chorus of “O!” and “O, miss!” was raised by her satellites; while, wonderful to relate, when she descended to the drawing-room, she was not the last, for two of the bridesmaids were not ready.

But Mrs Bray was there, gorgeous to behold, bearing upon her everything in the shape of costly dress that money would purchase. To describe her costume would be simply impossible, save to say that it was as solid-looking as her daughter’s was light and airy—the plaits and folds of her silken robe literally creaked and crackled as she moved, which was all of a piece. Colour there was too; but what, it would be impossible to say, the prevailing hue being warm scarlet, which was shed upon Mr Bray, whose white vest was so stiff and grand, that nothing could have been whiter and stiffer and grander, unless it was the tremendous cravat that held his head as if he was being garotted—symptoms of strangulation being really visible in the prominence of his eyes. But then, as he said, in regard to his sufferings, he did not have a daughter married every day.

“I should have liked for Mr Maximilian to have been here,” said Mrs Bray, as they were waiting for Nelly, who, now under the hands of Miss l’Aiguille, was being made up rapidly—her thin bony form growing quite graceful under the dressmakers fingers.

“Bless me, though, what is the matter?” cried Mrs Bray. “Laura my dear, pray don’t faint in those things, whatever you do!”

“Hush!” cried Laura hoarsely, as, by a strong effort, she recovered herself. “Did you—did you say Max was here?”

“No—no! I said I wished he was here,” said Mrs Bray pettishly. “I do not see what you have got to turn queer about in that. Your own brother too!”

Laura gave a sigh of relief and then closed her eyes for a few moments.

“Only a little while now,” she thought.

The hour was very near, and surely nothing could stay the event.

Then, summoning her resolution she began to pace slowly up and down the room. No tremulous maiden now, but a firm determined woman, who told herself tha............