Mrs. Heckfield insisted upon going to London to procure the wedding-clothes. Poor Lucy! Many people have a distinct abstract love of dress;—happy is it for them!—for as there is no doubt that a tolerably good-looking woman, very well dressed, will, in these days, eclipse a much handsomer one who is ill-dressed, surely it is a fortunate thing for those who can thus amuse, and embellish themselves at the same time. But this was not Lucy’s case. She was glad to look as well as she could, but the means of doing so were to her irksome; and she would fain have trusted the whole affair to mamma and to Mademoiselle. But no! Lord Montreville was exceedingly particular and anxious upon the subject. He especially recommended the only shoemaker who, to his mind, had an idea of making a shoe; and Lucy had at least half-a-dozen pair made, fitted, and descanted upon, before he was satisfied that they did justice to the shape of her foot, which proved extremely good when it was properly _chaussé_. She was half angry at his numerous criticisms and remarks upon the make of her gowns, and considerably bored at the number of times he wished to have them altered; still he did it all in so kind and so good-humoured a manner, she could not do otherwise than submit. But when he recommended his own dentist, and various tinctures, and tooth-powders, she felt half insulted. With the full consciousness about her of youth, and health, and ivory teeth, she thought, though he might have occasion for dentists and dentifrices, she needed not such things, and she felt for a moment the full difference of their ages. It was but for a moment—she was his plighted wife—her young affections were vowed to him; and she would have fancied herself guilty, to wish him other than he was. There were moments when her spirits were somewhat depressed; but at others, she was dazzled and excited by the beautiful presents that arrived every day. The diamonds, the Montreville diamonds, which were now her’s. The large pearl, which had belonged to Henrietta Maria, and which had been given by her to an ancestress of Lord Montreville’s; a diamond ring, placed by Charles II. on the taper finger of the beautiful wife of a Sir Ralph Montreville, a short time previous to his elevation to the peerage; an antique aigrette, presented by Queen Anne, on occasion of a royal _fête_! Ornaments of more modern date were showered upon her; but the heirlooms which assorted so well with the Welsh Castle, with its unpronounceable name, its donjon-keep, its subterranean passages, and its massive walls, were much more suited to her taste.