Then they all returned to the country, Harry going to the Park to make arrangements for the incoming of house-decorators and furnishers innumerable, who were to put to the rout all the old admiral’s bachelor abominations, and prepare the mansion for the reception of its fair mistress. That amiable young lady was beginning to find, by experience, that to be “going to be married” is very hard work indeed, the wear and tear of the feelings being a marked and alarming feature in the case. Thus, whenever Harry was away for a day, she found herself anxious, low-spirited, and a prey to innumerable misgivings lest evil should befall him. On one evening in particular, when he returned full twenty minutes later than he should have done, she felt so convinced that “dreadful trotting-mare” had by some means compassed his destruction, that she received him with a gentle shower of tears, which of course he kissed away, as he whispered that very soon she would be his dear little wife, and then nothing should part them even for an hour; and Alice smiled through her tears as she thought how, with every taste and feeling in common, they should trip gaily along the pathway of life, hand in hand, like a conjugal couple of Siamese twins. Dreams! pretty Alice, dreams! which many a young girl’s loving heart has framed ere this, only to awaken to a far different reality, and weep over the departure of such bright illusions. But there was not much time for dreaming or romance at the Grange, for the “fatal day” came nearer and nearer with alarming velocity, until at last it actually arrived; and everybody was in such a state of excitement, that an uninitiated spectator might have imagined the whole household, instead of merely one member of it, was going to be married. As every one expected a most fatiguing day, of course no one slept a wink during the previous night; and as the match was in every way most desirable, and Alice enjoyed as fair a prospect of happiness as those who loved her best could wish her, of course all the women, the moment it was light, indulged in the feminine luxury of “a hearty cry;” after which libation to sensibility, they set to work in real earnest to dress themselves and each other as becomingly as they possibly could. On the bride’s dressing-table was found a set of pearl ornaments, supposed by the learned in such matters to have cost at least £500, together with a slip of paper, representing Mr. Crane’s best wishes for her happiness; which piece of generosity Alice thought very amiable and pretty of him, as indeed it was. Kate (wearing a splendid bracelet, giver unknown) and Emily were to be bridesmaids, and four of the prettiest bosom friends the bride possessed made up the team. These six susceptible young creatures turned out in light blue, and very nice they looked, only (as Master Tom, reprieved for a week from Eton in order to be present at the ceremony, observed), they did not step well together--a deficiency for