then--who knows? Or perhaps they will die right out, be sickly and sorrowful no more, and give place to healthier if less cherished ones. Well, either way--whether the foolish pride of that dear bad boy allow him to seek forgiveness of the caprice she _knows_ he bitterly repents, or whether the anxious unquiet that still besets her go finally to rest--will be happiness. How unconscious was Jessy, at the moment she closed the mould over her treasures, that that dear bad boy of hers was closing over his breast a waistcoat which, innocent as it looked, would as effectually keep her curls from ever tumbling themselves there as bars of triple steel! How unconscious of more than the existence of the handsome and really graceful woman who, an hour or two later, was arraying herself in garlands and much muslin, a more unemotional sacrifice than the most Roman beeve that ever went lowing to the altar. Bride Sybilla’s countenance was beautiful and commanding beyond that of most women; her figure graceful and dignified as that of most queens. Tall, pale, yet with a paleness as bright and healthy as the paleness of May-blossom--her head set slightly but boldly forward from her throat--with brilliant teeth, dark brows of gracefulest curve, and dark eyes that could express every thing, but languishing and passion better than all--she would have been an indisputable belle of the season, some time or other, had she made her original and vulgar _debut_ within the circle of courtly existence. In very fact, she was so obviously fitted by nature for vegetation in the conservatory of Fashion: she had so elegant a mind; her shawls draped her so elegantly; she looked so much at home in a carriage--especially an open one, as every body remarked on occasions of pic-nic excursions; she would have adorned an opera-box so thoroughly, and blazed with such magnificence in family jewels--that, at length, it became plain even to herself that she had been born into a false position. Not that she ever expressed such a consciousness, or allowed herself to brood over it; her personal superiority was justifiably regarded as a natural fact, and the fact was worn like an old robe.