And the next moment the bride is weeping as if she would dissolve to one of Dian’s Virgin Fountains from the clasp of the Sun-God. She has nobly preserved the mask imposed by comedies, till the curtain has fallen, and now she weeps, streams with tears. Have patience, O impetuous young man! It is your profession to be a hero. This poor heart is new to it, and her duties involve such wild acts, such brigandage, such terrors and tasks, she is quite unnerved. She did you honour till now. Bear with her now. She does not cry the cry of ordinary maidens in like cases. While the struggle went on her tender face was brave; but, alas! Omens are against her: she holds an ever-present dreadful one on that fatal fourth finger of hers, which has coiled itself round her dream of delight, and takes her in its clutch like a horrid serpent. And yet she must love it. She dares not part from it. She must love and hug it, and feed on its strange honey, and all the bliss it gives her casts all the deeper shadow on what is to come. Say: Is it not enough to cause feminine apprehension, for a woman to be married in another woman’s ring? You are amazons, ladies, at Saragossa, and a thousand citadels—wherever there is strife, and Time is to be taken by the throat. Then shall few men match your sublime fury. But what if you see a vulture, visible only to yourselves, hovering over the house you are gaily led by the torch to inhabit? Will you not crouch and be cowards? As for the hero, in the hour of victory he pays no heed to omens. He does his best to win his darling to confidence by caresses. Is she not his? Is he not hers? And why, when the battle is won, does she weep? Does she regret what she has done? Oh, never! never! her soft blue eyes assure him, steadfast love seen swimming on clear depths of faith in them, through the shower. He is silenced by her exceeding beauty, and sits perplexed waiting for the shower to pass. Alone with Mrs. Berry, in her bedroom, Lucy gave tongue to her distress, and a second character in the comedy changed her face. “O Mrs. Berry! Mrs. Berry! what has happened! what has happened!” “My darlin’ child!” The bridal Berry gazed at the finger of doleful joy. “I’d forgot all about it! And that’s what’ve made me feel so queer ever since, then! I’ve been seemin’ as if I wasn’t myself somehow, without my ring. Dear! dear! what a wilful young gentleman! We ain’t a match for men in that state—Lord help us!” Mrs. Berry sat on the edge of a chair: Lucy on the edge of the bed. “What do you think of it, Mrs. Berry? Is it not terrible?” “I can’t say I should ’a liked it myself, my dear,” Mrs. Berry candidly responded. “Oh! why, why, why did it happen!” the young bride bent to a flood of fresh tears, murmuring that she felt already old—forsaken. “Haven’t you got a comfort in your religion for all accidents?” Mrs. Berry inquired. “None for this. I know it’s wrong to cry when I am so happy. I hope he will forgive me.”