Such youths as were fortunate enough to receive invitations to attend, were instructed to do so in a black velvet costume, knickerbockers, black silk stockings, shoes with steel buckles, and a Glengarry cap of black velvet. The two dominant figures in the great pageant bore upon them a burden of crowns, and cloaks, and swords, and trains, palls, sceptres, and rings and rods, mantles and caps and robes, whose heavy cares represented but lightly Royal responsibility. But the most interesting of all the garbs of convention, because the most supremely personal, is the bridal costume, dedicated primarily to white, and permitted to enjoy the distinctions of silver or lace decoration. Under ordinary conditions the widow who remarries, even as the mother of a bride, finds herself tempted to the paths of grey, and only occasionally lapses into the more triumphant glories of violet and pale blue and cream colour; and with the present fashion of enshrouding the hat or toque with a pendent veil, she may confidently share the grace of drapery with the virgin bride. Now and again during the past and the present centuries brides have thought fit to indulge their white satin simplicity with embroidery outlined with gold threads, and some have been sufficiently audacious to introduce a yellow-petalled daisy; and the revival of an old custom is the substitution of the prayer-book for the bouquet. But these are trivialities which obtain but scant attention, not even reaching the importance of a nine-days' wonder. On the whole, the bride's dress in the civilised parts of Europe must be written down as pre-eminently conservative and "splendidly null," and it is interesting to turn from its monotony to a consideration of the ordinary bridal costume in Ægra. This is black, and round the forehead of the bride is bound a fillet of pendent jewels in the shape of tears. And, by the way, I find that an embroidered pattern of tears was selected to ornament a widow's grey cloak in the sixteenth century. Assuredly this is a poetic notion, but its realisation might prove a little embarrassing, if the grief for the departed subsided before the garment was worn out. There would be nothing for it, I suppose, but to dedicate it to private service as a house-gown, or to give it the obscurity which a petticoat enjoys. When the sorrow dwindled to extinction, the remnants of the garment might well be bestowed on some very poor widow whose woe, mitigated or not, would inevitably rejoice at the chance of such elegant proclamation. But to return to my bride of Ægra, who enters upon her duties with much gravity and solemnity, going to the altar in a short black skirt, laced bodice, and hooded cloak, her sole ornament the nuptial band, which is bound round her forehead and tied with ribbon at the back, while in her hands she carries her rosary and her veil.