that of the victim of fashion, or that of uncatholic lands, where a poor girl passes from one state of slavery to another. "I hope," he said, "that we never shall be able to compare Bittra, like so many other brides, to the sleeping child that Carafola has painted, with an angel holding over it a crown of thorns, and whom marriage, like the angel, would awake by pressing the thorns on her brow." "God forbid!" I said fervently. How little I dreamed of the troubles that were looming up out of the immediate future to shroud her marriage sunshine in awful gloom! As the marriage procession passed the door where Alice lived, Bittra gave a little timid, imperious command to her admirers to stop. She and Ormsby alighted and passed into the cottage. The orange blossoms touched the crown of thorns on the head of the sick girl; but, somehow, both felt that there was need of a sisterhood of suffering on the one part to knit their souls together. Ormsby remained in the kitchen, talking to Mrs. Moylan; and from that day forward she was secured, at least, from all dread of dependence or poverty forevermore. At the breakfast table it was, of course, my privilege to propose the health of the bride and bridegroom, which I most gladly did; and, let me say, so successfully as to bring back unwonted smiles to Campion's face, who now freely forgave me for the _gaucheries_ at the marriage service. Then the guests strolled around, looking at the marriage presents--the usual filigree and useless things that are flung at the poor bride. Bittra took me into a little boudoir of her own to show me her _real_ presents. "Father," she said, "who is a great artist, wanted me to give back all this rubbish, as he calls it; but I would much rather sacrifice all that _bijouterie_ outside." And she exhibited with glistening eyes the bridal offerings of the poor fisherwomen and country folk of Kilronan. They were fearfully and wonderfully made. Here was a magnificent three-decker battleship, complete from pennant to bowsprit, every rope in its place, and the brass muzzles of its gun protruded for action. Here was a pretty portrait of Bittra herself, painted by a Japanese artist from a photograph, surreptitiously obtained, and which had been sent 15,000 miles across the ocean for an enlarged replica. Here were shells of all sizes and fantastic forms, gathered during generations, from the vast museums of the deep. Here was a massive gold ring, with a superb ruby, picked up, the Lord knows how, by a young sailor in the East Indian Islands. Here, screaming like a fury, was a paroquet, gorgeous as a rainbow, but ill-conducted as a monkey; and here was a gauze shawl, so fine that Bittra hid it in her little palm, and whispered that it was of untold price. "But, of course, I cannot keep all these treasures," she said; "I shall hold them as a loan for a while; and then, under one pretext or another, return them. It is what they indicate that I value."