and full, pouting lower lip, of the color of the ripe clove-carnation, that woos the kiss so irresistibly; with teeth as bright as mother-of-pearl, and a breath sighing forth sweeter than Indian summer. Such was the face of Marguerite, the bride of that May morning; nor was her form inferior to it. Modelled in the fullest and roundest mould that is consistent with symmetry and grace, her figure was the very perfection, the beau-ideal of voluptuous, full-blown, yet youthful womanhood. The broad, falling shoulders; the fully-developed, glowing bust, swelling into twin hills of panting snow; the round, shapely arms, bare to the shoulder; the graceful and elastic waist; the rich curve of the arched hips, and the wavy outlines of her lower limbs, suggesting, by the rustling folds of her draperies as she walked the dewy greensward like a queen, the beauty of their unseen symmetry: these, combined with the exquisite features, the singular expression uniting, what would appear to be incongruous and contradictory, much roguish archness, something that was almost sensual in the wreathed smile, and yet withal the most perfect modesty and innocence, rendered Marguerite, the May-bride of Castel de Roche d’or, one of the loveliest, if not the very loveliest creature that ever walked to church with her affianced lover in that fair land of France. She wore, like her bridesmaids--who, all pretty girls, were utterly eclipsed by her radiant beauty--a May-wreath on her head, and a large bouquet of fresh violets on the bosom of her low-cut white dress, which was looped up at one side with bunches of narcissus and violets, to show an under-skirt of pale peach-colored silk, the tints of which showed faintly through the thin draperies of her tunic; but, unlike them, she wore a long gauze veil, intertwined with silver threads, floating down among her luxuriant tresses, below her shapely waist. Never was there seen in that region a lovelier, a purer, or a happier bride. Immediately behind the bridesmaids, supported in his turn by an equal number of tall, sinewy, well-formed youths, dressed in their best attire, half-agricultural, half-martial, as feudal vassals of their lord, bound to man-service in the field, came on the stalwart bridegroom. He was a tall, athletic, well-made man of twenty-nine or thirty years, erect as a quarter-staff, yet showing in every motion an elastic pliability and grace, which, although in reality the mere result of nature, appeared to be the consequence either of innate gentility or of long usance to the habits of the upper classes.