She had a right to beauty from both parents, and resembled both of them to a certain degree. She had the tall splendid figure of the Tempests with their fair skin and pale golden hair, waving back thick and burnished from her low white forehead. But she had her mother's dark unfathomable eyes with the long dark eyelashes, and her mother's features with their inherent nobility and strength, which were so entirely lacking in the Tempests--at least, in the present generation of them. Some people, women mostly, said there was too much contrast between her dark eyes and eyebrows and the extreme fairness of her complexion and hair. Men, however, did not think so. They saw that she was beautiful, and that was enough. Indeed, it was too much for some of them. Women said, also, that her features were too large, that she was on too large a scale altogether. No doubt that accounted for the fact that she was seldom overlooked. "Well, Granny, and how is the headache?" she asked gaily, pulling off her long gloves and instantly beginning to unwire the mimosa in her bouquet with rapid, capable white hands. "Oh! the headache is gone," said Mrs. Courtenay, watching her granddaughter. "And how did it all go off?" "Perfectly," said Di, in her clear gay voice. "Madeleine looked beautiful, and often as I have been bridesmaid I never stood behind a bride with a better fitting back. I suppose the survival of the best fitted is what we are coming to in these days. Anyhow, Madeleine attained to it. It was a well done thing altogether. The altar one mass of white peonies! White peonies at Easter! Sir Henry was the only red one there. And eight of us all youth and innocence in white and amber to bear her company. We bridesmaids were all waiting for her for some time before she arrived or he either; but Lord Hemsworth marched him in at last, just when I was beginning to hope he would not turn up. I have seen him look worse, Granny. He did not look so very bald until he knelt down, and I have known his nose redder. To a friend I dare say it only looked like a blush that had lost its way. He is a stout man to outline himself in a white waistcoat, but I thought on the whole he looked well." "Di," said Mrs. Courtenay, with her little inward laugh, "you should not say such things." "Oh yes, I can say anything I like to you," said Di. "Dear me, I am sitting on my new amber sash! What extravagance! It will be long enough before I have another. It was really good of Lady Breakwater to give me the whole turn-out. We never could have afforded it." "Did Madeleine look unhappy?" "No; she was pale, but perfectly collected, and she walked quite firmly to the chancel steps where the security for fifteen thousand a year and two diamond tiaras and a pendant was awaiting her. The security looked a little nervous."