This description of a Venetian wedding in the eighteenth century was by Lady Miller:--"All the ladies, except the bride, were dressed in their black gowns with large hoops; the gowns were straight-bodied with very long trains, the trains tucked up on one side of the hoop with a prodigious large tassel of diamonds. Their sleeves were covered up to their shoulders with falls of the finest Brussels lace, a drawn tucker of the same round the bosom, adorned with rows of the finest pearls, each the size of a gooseberry, till the rows descended below the top of the stomacher; then two rows of pearls, which came from the back of the neck, were caught up at the left side of the stomacher, and finished in two fine tassels. Their heads were dressed prodigiously high, in a vast number of buckles and two long drop curls in the neck. A great number of diamond pins and strings of pearls adorned their heads, with large sultanas, or feathers, on one side, and magnificent diamond ear-rings. The bride was dressed in cloth of silver made in the same fashion, and decorated in the same manner, but her brow was kept quite bare, and she had a fine diamond necklace and an enormous bouquet." Lady Miller deserved to have lived in times when the conduct of the fashion paper was amongst the privileges of the high nobility. CHAPTER XIX OF DANCING DRESSES, EUROPEAN AND ORIENTAL, ANCIENT AND MODERN Sympathy between Church and Stage is of no novel date. The relationship between the two has been close and intimate since the days when no religious festival was complete without its chorus of dancers, and the officiating priests took part in the tripping until the introduction, in the Middle Ages, of such profanities as the Dance of Death and the Dance of the Angels, common in Italy, Spain, and France, caused the practice to fall into disrepute. Possibly the present time sees the Terpsichorean art at its lowest ebb. Nevertheless, a promising sign of reviving interest is that modern scientists, following the example of the old Greek philosophers, are emerging as champions of the lightsome measure. Still, it is doubtful whether it will ever again attain the respect it reached in ancient Greece; and it were mere optimism to hope that we may yet witness Members of Parliament dancing to their seats in the House of Commons, our judges pirouetting solemnly towards the bench, and our admirals and generals inculcating a spirit of patriotism by dances devised to inspire heroic sentiments and an exalted idea of military duty.