Melior wore that day upon her lovely head a wreath of thistles, and about her middle a remarkable garment of burnished steel fastened with a small padlock: in her hand she carried a distaff, flax and a spindle. And the marriage ceremony of the Peohtes, while new to Florian, proved delightfully simple. First Melior and Florian were given an egg and a quince pear: he handed her the fruit, which she ate, and the seeds of which she spat out; he took from her the egg and broke it. Holy Hoprig, who had tendered his resignation as the high-priest of Llaw Gyffes, but whose successor had not yet been appointed, then asked the bridegroom a whispered question. Florian was astonished, and showed it. But he answered, without comment, “Well, let us say, nine times.” Hoprig divided a cake into nine slices, and placed these upon the altar. Afterward Hoprig cut the throat of a white hen, and put a little of its blood upon the feet of Melior and Florian. The trumpets sounded then, as King Helmas came forward, and gave Florian a small key. PART TWO _THE END OF LIGHT WINNING_ “_En femme, comme en tout, je veux suivre ma mode.... Et j’ay beny le Ciel d’avoir trouvé mon faict, Pour me faire une femme au gré de mon souhait_.” _11._ _Problems of Beauty_ It was conceded even by the younger and most charming ladies of the neighborhood that the new Duchess of Puysange was quite good looking. The gentlemen of Poictesme appeared, literally, to be dazzled by any prolonged consideration of Melior’s loveliness: otherwise, as Florian soon noted, there was no logical accounting for the discrepancy in their encomia. Enraptured pæeans upon her eyes, for example, he found to differ amazingly and utterly in regard to such an important factor as the color of these eyes. This was, at mildest, a circumstance provocative of curiosity. Florian therefore listened more attentively to what people said of his wife; and he discovered that his fellows’ ecstasies over Melior’s hair and shape and complexion were not a whit less inconsistent. These envious babblers were at one in acclaiming as flawless the beauty which he had intrepidly fetched down from the high place: but in speaking of any constituent of this loveliness they seemed not to be talking of the same woman. Either her perfection actually did dazzle men so that they were bewilderedly aware of much such a beguiling and intoxicating brightness as Florian, on looking back, suspected Melior to have been in his own eyes before he married her, or else the appearance of this daughter of the Léshy was not to all persons the same. Well, this was queer: but it was not important. Florian at least was in no doubt of his wife’s appearance nor of his right to glory in it. So Florian tended to let this riddle pass unchallenged, and to quarrel with nothing, for Florian was very happy.