I cannot tell of the effect as Mary Ashburleigh swept into that splendid banqueting-room, one long pyramid of velvet pierced with webbed interstices of light. If the largest window of St. Ursula's church had come down and entered the room, the spectacle could not have been so superb. One item struck me: the younger bride, of course, wore orange buds; but for the Englishwoman, a beauty ripe with many summers, buds and blossoms were inappropriate; she wore fruits: in the grand coronal of plaits that massed itself upon her head were set, like gems, three or four small, delicious, amber-scented mandarin oranges. With this piece of exquisite apropos did the infallible Mary Ashburleigh crown the edifice of her good taste. The two brides sat opposite each other. A small watch, which I had happened to buy at Coblenz, I managed to detach and lay on the Dark Ladye's plate as my offering. On a card beside it I merely wrote, "ANOTHER TIME!" Who knows? Perhaps Sylvester may fill and founder as the other has done. He looks miserably bilious and frightened. I had rather partake of a rare dinner than describe one. The wines alone represented all the cellars of the Rhine and the whole champagne country. Fortnoye, who gave the feast, entertained both Sylvester's party and his own with regal good cheer. Think not that Henri Fortnoye was the ordinary obfuscated, superfluous, bewildered bridegroom. On the contrary, assuming immediately the head of his own table, he took the responsibility of the party's merriment, and made the good humor flow like the wine. I know not how it was, but ere the meal was over I found myself joining in one of his choruses; Frau Kranich forgot her asceticism and exhumed all her youthful air of gayety; James Athanasius Grandstone promised the host to set his wines running in every State of America. But the prettiest moment was when the two brides rose and touched glasses, mutually and to the health of the company, apropos of a little wedding-song which Fortnoye had composed and was trolling at the head our willing chorus. [ILLUSTRATION: HOMEWARD BOUND.] CONCLUSION. I have arrived at Marly, and, with the ssistance of much sarcasm from Hohenfels, am getting on with considerable spirit at my Progressive Geography. When man's Hope ceases temporarily to take a merely Human aspect, may it not suffer a fresh avatar and begin in a new and Geographical form its beneficent career? The Dark Ladye has sunk beneath my horizon, but speculations over the Atlantean and Lunar Mountains are still succulent and vivifying. [ILLUSTRATION: CHARLES AND JOSEPHINE.]