When the old lady had withdrawn, all the more youthful of the visitors formed a group in the center of the floor. One laughing girl held a pair of diminutive scales; and another was laden with the glittering skeins of flat gold thread, of which were to be woven the singular head-dress to which I have already made allusion. The gallantry of the bridegroom had induced him to send forty drachms of this expensive gewgaw to his fair mistress, instead of ten; the largest quantity that the laws of the Greek Church allow to be worn; and the first care of the party was, consequently, to separate the skeins, and to weigh out the portion destined for the bride. When this had been accomplished, a score of us were employed at once. The threads were drawn out singly, in lengths of about three yards, and were then woven together at the end into a sort of coronet, whence they fell in a golden shower to the floor. When this pretty and amusing occupation was over, we took our leave, each embracing the bride in turn, who still retained her place upon the sofa; and every individual, as she passed the bridal gear, flinging over it a handful of small silver coin. I was summoned on the morrow at an early hour; for all the religious ceremonies of the Greeks are performed at most unseasonable times. Even their Sunday mass, when the poorer portions of the population, after having toiled throughout the previous six days, might be excused a little sluggishness, commences at daybreak; and no one who has spent four months in a Greek village, as we did, can have failed to be awakened at dawn by the rattling together of the two cedar sticks, which are the substitute for a bell; followed by the frightful drawl of the inferior priest, who traverses the streets, and utters a second invitation to prayer, half growl and half shriek; infinitely more calculated to frighten away the pious from his vicinity, than to induce them to seek it. But the call is, nevertheless, answered. Every cottage pours forth its inhabitants; and even at daybreak the females deck themselves out in all the finery of which they are possessed. Here it is a red gown, and a yellow shawl—there a blue turban, and a pair of pink shoes—in short, there is nothing more laughable than the idea that the poorer class of Greek women entertain of a becoming toilette. Your maid answers the clapping of your hands, (for bells there are none in Eastern houses) in a turban of colored muslin or gauze a yard square, and half a yard high; or, if she be an elderly woman, in a little red woollen cap with a purple silk tassel, bound to her head by a painted handkerchief, over which is twisted a thick plait of hair, generally false—the shortest of petticoats, the most showy of stockings, the smartest of aprons, and a pair of earrings frequently hanging to her shoulders; and poor indeed must be the female servant in a Greek family who is not the happy possessor of three or four gold rings!