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THE MARRIAGE BLUNDER.

AN AMERICAN STORY.

I have never been able to understand the peculiar significancy of the old and often quoted maxim, that matches are made in heaven, as if Providence had more to do with our marriages, and we ourselves less, than with the other enterprises and acts of our lives. The truth is, that nothing we do is transacted with more deliberation than our matrimonial engagements. The talk about rashness, precipitancy, and blindness, in the parties between whom the union is formed, is all cant, and cant of the most ancient and stale kind. I wonder it is not exploded in an age when old theories and longestablished opinious are thrown aside with as little ceremony or remorse as a grave digger shovels up the bones and dust of past generations. In almost every marriage that takes place, the bridegroom has passed by many a fair face before he has made his final election, and the bride refused many a wooer. The parties are united after a courtship generally of months-the fair one defers the day of the nuptials from mere maiden coyness, and the lover must have time to provide her a habitation. Religious ceremonies, the forms of law, the preparations for the festivity of the occasion, all interpose their numerous delays. Even where the parties have nothing to do with the matter themselves, it is managed with great reflection and contrivance, with negotiations warily opened and skilfully conducted on the part of their relations. Why, the very making of these matches, which the proverb so flippantly affirms to be made with out our agency, constitutes nearly half the occupation of civilised society. For this the youth applies himself diligently to the making of his fortune; for this the maiden studies the graces and accomplishments of her sex. I have known persons who for years never thought of any other subject. I have known courtships which lasted through four lustres. I have known mothers who for. years made it the business of their lives to settle their daughters. The premeditation of matrimony influences all the fashions, amusements, and employments of mankind. What a multitude of balls and parties, and calls, and visits, and journeys, are owing to this fruitful cause-what managing and manoeuvring, what dressing and dancing, what patching and painting, how much poetry and how much prose, what quantities of music, and conversation, and criticism, and scandal, and civility, that otherwise would never have had an existence !

The result justifies the supposition of deliberation; and most marriages are accordingly made with sufficient wisdom. Talk of the risk undertaken by the candidate for the happiness of a conjugal life! The man who marries is not so often cheated as the man who buys a horse, even when the bargain is driven for him by the most knowing jockey. Ten are unfortunate in trade, to one who is unfortunate in a wife. Marriages are comfortable and respectable things the world over, with a few exceptions. Ill-natured people torment each other, it is true; but if they were not married they would torment somebody else, unless they retired to a hermitage; while, on the other hand, good tempers are improved by the domestic affections which the married state calls forth.

If marriage happened to a man without his knowledge or consent; if it came upon one unexpectedly like a broken leg, or a fever, or a legacy from a rich relation, or a loss by a broken bank; if young men

and

young women were to lay their heads on their pillows in celibacy and wake the next morning in wedlock; if one were to have no voice in the election of a wife, but were obliged to content himself with one chosen for him by lot, there would, I grant, be some propriety in the maxim I have mentioned. But in a matter which is the subject of so much discussion and deliberation as marriage, not only on the part of the youth and the damsel, but of all friends and acquaintances, and which is hedged round with so many forms and ceremonies, it is nonsense to talk of any particular fatality. I recollect but two instances of people being coupled together not only without their knowledge or consent, but without even that of their friends. The marriage took place on the same day, in the same church, and from the misery in which the parties lived, it might be inferred that the matches were made any where else but in heaven. I will relate the story, as it is rather a curious one, though I admit not at all romantic. I would make it more

so if in my power, for the gratification of certain persons whose fair hands will turn these pages; but I have no skill in embellishing plain matters of fact.

Some years since, when I was at Natchitoches, on the banks of the Red River, I became acquainted with a French cotton planter of the name of La Ruche, whose house stood at a little distance from the village. He was a lively, shrivelled old gentleman, dried almost to a mummy by seventy hot Louisiana summers, with a head white as snow, but

a step as light as that of the deer he hunted. He loved to tell of all times, of the adventures of his youth, and of the history of his contemporaries and the country. The novelty of these subjects stimulated my curiosity and kindled my imagination, and it may readily be supposed that he found me a most willing listener. For this quality of mine he took a vehement liking to me, and used to invite me to his plantation, where he would keep me, in spite of all my excuses, for days together. La Ruche was the descendant of one of the early settlers of Louisiana, the younger son of an ancient Gascon family who eame out with La Harpe in the early part of the eighteenth century, and made one of the colony which he led to the banks of the Red River. The father of my friend, a wealthy planter, had sent him in his youth to be educated at Paris. After an absence of six years, in which he acquired a competent share of the graces and intelligence of that polished capital, he returned to complete his education in a different school, and one better suited to the state of the country at that period. He exchanged his silk breeches for leathern ones, learned to navigate the immense rivers of this region, to traffic and hold talks with the Indiars, to breed and train packs of hounds, to manage the spirited horses of the country, to pursue and kill the deer in the merry and noisy hunt by torch light, and to bring down the fiercer bear and panther. Once he had penetrated over land to Mexico. Three times he had guided a skiff through the difficult channels of the Great Raft, as it is called, of the Red River, thirty leagues to the north of Natchitoches, where, for eighty miles in length, it drowns an immense extent of country, overlaying it with huge trunks of trees, above which wave the dwarf willows and gaudy marsh flowers, and around and under which creep sluggishly the innumerable and intricate currents.

My friend loved to make me ride out with him, and I believe he did it partly from a motive of vanity, that I might see how much better a horseman he was than I. We were commonly mounted on two fine mares of the Andalusian breed, fleet, spirited, with prominent veins, and eyes that shot fire like those of an Andalusian lady. Such rides as we had in the charming month of October!-for charming it is in every region of North America. We crossed the blood-coloured stream of the Red River, and visited the noble prairies between it and the Washita. Let no man talk to me of the beauti. ful scenery of the old world; I have seen it; it is beauty on a small scale, in miniature, in little spots and situations: but if he would see beauty in its magnificence and vastness, beauty approaching to sublimity, yet not losing but rather heightening its own peculiar character, let him visit the prairies of our south-western country. Let him contemplate the long sweeping curve of primeval forest with which they are bordered, where the huge, straight, columnar trunks are wound with gigantic blossoming vines, and upheave to an immense height a canopy of the thickest foliage and the deepest green. Let him look far over the immense grassy ocean spread before him-on the innumerable gorgeous flowers that glow like gems among the ver dure on the clumps of towering trees planted over them at pleasant distances, as if for bowers of refreshment-and the immense rivers draining territories large enough for empires, by which they are often bounded at one extremity. Here the features of the earth are in unison with those of heaven; with the sky of tenderest blue, the edge of whose vast circle comes down seemingly into the

very grass; with the wind that bends all those mul titudes of flowers in one soft but mighty respiration, and with the great sun that steeps the whole in his glory.

But the scene of my story lies on the western side of the Red River; and I have no excuse for linger. ing thus between that stream and the Washita, save the surpassing amenity of these gardens of God, for such they are, laid out and planted and beautified by his own hand.

One day I rode out with my ancient host towards the Rio Hondo, a small river wandering through dark forests in a deep channel, up to which the Spanish government formerly claimed when they extended their pretensions to the west of the Sabine. "There," said La Ruche, pointing to a placid sheet of water, over whose border hung the peach leaved willows of the country," there is the Spanish Lake, and in a little time we shall be in the old Spanish town of Adayes, about ten miles distant from Natchitoches. This country is the ancient debateable ground on which the two rival colonies of France and Spain met, and planted their first settlements by the side of each other." A little farther on, my companion gave a wave of his hand-"There," said he, "is Adayes-the inhabitants are a good sort of people, simple, hospitable, bigoted, and ignorant; but look well to that pretty silver-mounted riding whip of yours, or you may chance not to carry it back with you."

I looked and saw a cluster of tall, clumsy houses, plastered on the outside with mud, which, peeling off in many places, showed the logs of which they were built. We entered the town at a round pace, and then checking our horses, passed slowly through it. The inhabitants were sitting at their doors, or loitering about in the highway, for the weather had that soft golden autumnal serenity which makes one impatient of being any where but in the open air. We entered into conversation with them-they spoke nothing but Spanish, but when I looked in their faces, and remarked the strong aboriginal cast of features, and the wild blackness of the eye in many of them, I expected every moment to be saluted in Cherokee or Choctaw. La Ruche directed my attention to their place of worship, which stood in the centre of the village. "Look at that little church," said he, "built far back in the last century. It has four bells, two or three of which are cracked, and on the religious festivals they express the public joy in the most horrid jangle you ever heard. The walls of the interior are adorned with several frightful daubs of renowned saints, which assist the devotion of the worshippers. Note it well, I beg of you, for you are to hear a story about it to-day at dinner."

We left the village, and the lazy people that loitered about its old dwellings. On our way to Natchitoches, we passed a fine cotton plantation, to which my friend called my particular attention. The mansion of the proprietor, with three sharp parallel roofs, and a piazza in front, stood embowered in shades, its stuccoed walls, of a yellowish colour, gleaming through the deep green leaves of the catalpa, and the shivering foliage of the China tree. At the back of it stood, in a cluster, the comfortable-looking cottages of the negroes, built of cypress timber, before which the young woolly headed imps of the plantation were gamboling and whooping in the sun. Still farther back lay a confused assemblage of pens, from some of which were heard the cries and snuffling of swine, and around them all was a great enclosure for the reception of cattle, in

which I saw goats walking and bleating, and geese gabbling to each other and hissing at two or three huge dogs that moved surlily among them. My companion stopped his horse, and called my notice to a couple of fine trees of the botton wood species, or sycamore, as they are called in the western country, planted near each other, before the principal door of the house. They had not yet attained the fall size, and swelled with a lustiness and luxuriance of growth that bespoke the majesty and loftiness they were yet destined to attain. My friend gave me to understand that there was some romantic association connected with these trees. "Ce sont les monumens d'un pur et tendre amour du bon vieux temps," said he, laying his hand on his heart, and looking as pathetically as a Frenchman can do" but you shall hear more about it, as well as about the little old church, when we are more at leisure

That day my venerable friend dined with more conviviality than usual. He made me taste his Chateau Margaux, his Medoc, his Lafitte, &c, for these planters keep a good stock of old wines in their cellars-and insisted on my doing him reason in a glass of Champagne. I had never seen him in such fine spirits. He told me anecdotes of the French court at the close of the reign of Louis the Fourteenth, and the beginning of that of his successor, and sang two or three vaudevilles in a voice that was but slightly cracked, and with a sharp monotony of note. His eye sparkled from beneath his grey eyebrows, to speak fancifully, like a bright fountain from under frostwork; and I thought I could detect a faint tinge of red coming out upon his parchment cheek, like the bloom of a second youth. Suddenly he became grave. "My friend," said he, solemnly, rising and reaching forward his glass, and touching the brim to mine, as is the custom of the country

1 rose also, involuntarily, awed by the earnest gra. vity of his manner.

"My friend, let us pledge the memory of a most excellent man now no more, the late worthy carate of Adayes, and my ancient friend, Baltazar Polo,"

I did as I was requested. "Sit down, Mr. Herbert," said the old man, when he had emptied his glass; "sit down, I pray you," said he, with an air which instantly showed me that he had recovered his vivacity-" and I will tell you a pleasant story about that same Baltazar Polo. I have been keeping it for you all day.

"Baltazar Polo was a native of Valencia, in old Spain, and I have heard him boast that old Gil Polo, who wrote the Diana Enamorada,' was of the family of his ancestors. He was educated at the University of Saragossa, Some unfortunate love affair in early life, having given him a distaste for the vanities of the world, he entered into holy orders, quitted the country of his ancestors, came to New Mexico, and wandered to the remote and solitary little settlement of Adayes, where he sat himself down to take care of the souls and bodies of the simple inhabitants. He was their curate, doctor, and schoolmaster. He taught the children their ares, and if willing, their alphabet, said mass, helped the old nurses to cure the bilious fever, proposed riddles to the young people, and played with them at forfeits and blindman's buff. There his portrait hangs just before you look at it, Herbert a good looking man, was he not ?"

It is a round, honest, jolly face," said I, "and not devoid of expression. There is a becoming

clerical stoop in the shoulders, an his eyes are so prominent, that my friend Spurzheim would set him down for a great proficient in the languages. But there is a blemish in the left eye, if I am not mistaken.'

It was put out by a blow from an angry Castilian, whom he had accidentally jostled in the streets of Madrid, and whom he was coaxing to be quiet. He was the gentlest and most kindly officious of human beings, full of good intentions, and ever attempting good works, though not always successfully. He was very absent, and so near-sighted with the only eye he had, that his sphere of vision was actually, I believe, limited to the circle of a few inches. These defects kept him continually playing at a game of cross-purposes; and if the trauquil and sleepy lives of the people of Adayes had ever been disturbed by any tendency to waggery, they might have extracted infinite amusement from his continual blunders. I have known him address a negro with an exhortation intended for his master, recommending courtesy to his inferiors, and good treatment and indulgence to his s'aves, enlarging upon the duty of allowing them wholesome food and comfortable clothing, and of letting them go at large during the holidays. I doubt whether the black rogue was much the better for this good counsel. The next moment, perhaps, he would accost the lazy proprietor himself with a homily on the duty of obedience and alacrity in labour. He would expostulate feelingly with some pretty natural coquet of the village, whose only pride was in her own graceful shape, lustrous eyes, and crimson petticoat, and whose only ambition was to win the heart of some young beau from Natchitoches, on the folly of staking her last rag at the gaming-table; and I once heard of his lecturing an unshaven, barefooted, shirtless old Spaniard, in a poncho and tattered pair of breeches, the only ones he had in the world, on the wickedness of placing his affections on the vanities of dress.

"But, alas! there were no wags in that primitive little village, and there was no wit. The boys never stuffed with gunpowder the cigars which the worthy Valencian used to smoke after dinner, nor did the men, to make him drunk, substitute brandy for the wholesome vino tinto, of which, from mere absence of mind, he would sometimes, in the company of his friends, partake rather too genially. They never thought of making any man's natural oddities of manner or peculiarities of temper the subject of merriment, any more than the cut of his face. If ever they laughed, it was at what would excite the laughter of children-at palpable rustic jokes and broad buffoonery, at the Pruchinela, as the Spaniards call Punch, from Mexico, and at the man from New Orleans, who pulled so many yards of ribbon from his mouth. On the contrary, they had as high an opinion of the Reverend Father Polo's sagacity as they justly had of his goodness. Whenever there was any thing in his conduct which puzzled them, as was often the case, they ascribed it to some reason too deep for scrutiny, and only became the more confirmed in their notion of his unfathomable wisdom. Far from comprehending any ridicule on the subject of his mistakes, they would look grave, shake their solemn Spanish heads, and say they would warrant Father Polo knew very well what he was about. This confidence in his superior understanding fortunately served to counteract in a good degree the effects of his continual mistakes. But it was not only among the people of Adayes that he was loved and respected. The neighbouring French planters found in him an agreeable and in

structive companion, and were glad of a pretext to detain him a day or two at their houses; nor was his reputation confined to this neighbourhood alone, for I remember to have heard my friend Antonia de Sedilla, the venerable bishop of Louisiana, speak of him as a man of great learning and piety, and once in my presence the benevolent Poydras took occasion to extol his humanity.

"At the time of which I am speaking, the prettiest maiden of Adayes was Teresa Paccard, the daughter of a Frenchman, who had taken a wife of Spanish extraction, and settled in the village. Teresa inherited much of the vivacity of our nation, and was likewise somewhat accomplished; for her father had made her learn a tolerable stock of phrases in his native language, and often took her to visit the families of the French planters; and the good Baltazar had taught her to read. At the age of sixteen she was an orphan, without fortune, and but for the hospitality of her neighbours, without a home. Not far from the village lived a young Frenchman, who had emigrated thither from the broad airy plains of the Avoyelles, some hundred miles down the Red River, where he had followed the occupation of a herdsman. He had grown weary of watching the immense droves of cattle and horses belonging to others, and having collected a little money, emigrated to the parish of Natchitoches, bought a few acres, and established himself in the more dignified condition of a proprietor, with his old father, in a rude cabin swarming with a family of healthy brothers and sisters. Richard Lemoine, then in his twentieth year, was one of the haudsomest men of the province, notwithstanding his leathern doublet and small clothes, the dress of the prairies. He was of Norman extraction, fair haired, blue eyed, ruddy in spite of the climate, broad shouldered, large limbed, with a pair of heavy Teutonic wrists, of a free port and frank speech, and such a horseman as even in this country of fine horsemen is seldom seen. He saw Teresa-"

submitted with that grace so characteristic of our nation, to what he could not remedy, endured the. married state with becoming resignation, and showed himself a most obedient and exemplary husband. Ten years passed away in wedlock, at the end of which my friend Labedoyère regained his liberty by departing for another world, where I trust he received the reward of his patience. Eight years longer his lady dwelt in solitary widowhood, as the sole inheritor of Labedoyère's large estates; and the features of the demure maiden had settled into those of the imperious matron-a full square face, dark strong eyebrows, and steady bold black eyes, while her once sylphlike figure had rounded into a dignified and comfortable corpulency, and her light youthful step had been exchanged for the stately and swimming gait of a duchess.

"This lady bad consented to receive the addresses of a rich old Frenchman, who lived two or three miles distant from her house, and still further from the spot where the young Richard Lemoine had established himself with his old parents, and their numerous progeny. Monsieur Du Lac was a little old gentleman, of sixty years of age, an inveterate hypochondriac, and the most fretful and irritable being imaginable, with a bilious, withered face, an under lip projecting so as to be the most conspicuous feature of his countenance, and the corners of his mouth drawn down with a perpetual grimace. of discontent. No subject could be more unpro mising for a woman of the disposition of Madame Labedoyère; but she was weary of having nobody but servants to govern; besides, she was a lady of spirit, and felt herself moved by the noble ambition of taming so intractable a creature as Monsieur Du Lac. She therefore began to treat him with extreme civility and deference, inquired, with the tenderest interest, the state of his health, sent him prescriptions for his maladies, and good things. from her well-stored pantry, and whenever they met, accosted him with her mildest words and softest accents, and chastised the usual terrors of her eye into a catlike sleepiness and languor of look. The plan succeeded; the old gentleman's heart was taken by surprise; he reflected how invaluable would be the attentions, the skill, and the sympathy of so kind a friend and so accomplished a nurse "Yes, my daughter,' said he,' with all my heart. as Madame Labedoyère, in the midst of his inThe young man is not rich, to be sure-and you are creasing infirmities; he studied a few phrases of poor-but you are both industrious and virtuous-gallantry, and offered her his hand, which, after a you love each other I suppose, and I ought not to prevent you from being happy.'

"And fell in love, of course," said I, interrupting my host.

And fell in love, of course," resumed he; "and Teresa was not averse to his addresses. They first agreed to be married, and then the young lady consulted Baltazar Polo.

"About the same time another courtship, not quite so tender, perhaps, but more prudent and wellconsidered, was going on between a couple of maturer age and more easy circumstances. You cannot have forgotten the thrifty-looking plantation I showed you this morning, and the neat mansion, with the two young sycamores before its door. There lived, at the period of my story, and there had lived for eighteen years before, Madame Labedoyère, the widow of a rich planter, childless, and just on the very verge of forty. She was a country woman of yours, an Anglo-American lady, whom Labedoyère found in one of your Atlantic cities, poor, proud, and pretty, and transplanted to the banks of the Red River to bear rule over himself and his household, while he contented himself with ruling his field negroes. The honest man, I believe, found her a little more inclined to govern than he had expected; but after a short struggle for his independ ence, in which he discovered that her temper was bots when she was suffered to take her own way, he

proper exhibition of coyness, hesitatiou, and deliberation, on a step so important to the lady's happiness, was accepted.

Thus matters were arranged between the mature and between the youthful lovers; they were to be married, and to be happy, and honest Baltazar Polo, the favourite of both young and old for leagues round, was to perform the marriage cere mony. The courtship of both couples had been in autumn, and now the chilly and frosty month of January was over, and the rains of February had set in, flooding the roads and swelling the streams wedding until finer weather. The weary rains of to such a degree that nobody could think of a February passed away also, and the sun of March looked out in the heavens. March is a fine month in our climate, whatever it may be in yours, Mr. Herbert; it brings bright pleasant days, and soft airs-now and then, it is true, a startling thundershower; but then, such a magnificence of young vegetation, such a glory of flowers over all the spring in Louisiana, Mr. Herbert, and I assure woods and the earth! You have not yet seen the

you it is a sight worth a year's residence in the country.

"March, as I told you, had set in; the planters began to intrust to the ground the seeds of cotton and maize; fire. flies were seen to twinkle in the evening, and the dog-wood to spread its large white blossoms, and the crimson tufts of the red bud to burst their winter sheaths, and the azalea and yellow jessamine, and a thousand other brilliant flowers, which you shall see if you stay with us till spring, flaunted by the borders of the streams, and filled the forests with intense fragrance; and the prairies were purple with their earliest blossoms. Spring is the season of new plans and new hopes--the time for men and birds to build new habitations, and marry-the time for those who are declining to the grave with sickness and old age, to form plans for long years to come. I myself, amidst the freshness and youthfulness of nature, and the elasticity of the air of this season, white as my hair is, sometimes forget that I am old, and almost think I shall live for ever. Mons.

Du Lac grew tenderer as the sun mounted higher, the air blew softer, and the forests looked greener; he became impatient for the marriage day, and entreated the widow to defer their mutual happiness no longer.

"Ah, my dear madam!" said the withered old gentleman, in a quaking falsetto voice, let us gather the flowers of existence before they are faded-let us enjoy the spring of life! It was impossible for the gentle widow to resist such ardent solicitations, and she consented that the nuptial rites should be delayed no longer,

"Nearly at the same time that this tender scene was passing, Richard Lemoine also, in phrase less select, but by no means less impassioned, pressed the lovely Teresa, and not in vain, to a speedy union. But it was already near the close of the carnival, and but two or three days intervened before the commencement of Lent, that long melan. choly fast, in which, for the space of forty days, the Catholic church forbids the happy ceremony of marriage. I have often thought, that if the observances of our church had been regulated with a particular view to the climate of Louisiana, the fast of Lent would have been put a month or two earlier in the calendar; but I am no divine, and do not presume to give my profane opinion upon this delicate and sacred subject. Neither did the four lovers; but it was agreed by them all that they could not possibly wait until Lent was over, and the only alternative was to be married before it began.

"In the mean time it seemed as if all the inhabitants of the parish of Nachitoches, who had the misfortune to be single, had formed the resolution of entering into the state of wedlock before the carnival ended. They came flocking in couples of various nations, ages, and complexions, to the church of Adayes, to be married by the good Baltazar Polo; and that year was long afterwards remembered in the parish of Nachitoches, under he name of l'an des noces, the year of weddings. "Do you know, Richard,' said Teresa to her lover, on his proposing that the wedding ceremony should take place the next day, 'do you know that Father Polo has promised, on the day after to-morrow, which is the last of the carnival, to begin at four o'clock in the morning, and to marry the same mass all who shall present themselves at the church of Adayes? It is so awkward to be

married with every body staring at one!-but if we are married in company with a dozen others, they cannot laugh at us, you know. Let it there fore be the day after to-morrow, dear Richard, and as early in the morning as you please, for the earlier we go to the church the darker it will be, and I should like, of all things, to be married in the dark.' Richard could not but assent to so reasonable a proposal, and departed to make his little arrangements at home for the reception of his bride.

"It is somewhat femarkable that Madame Labedoyère, notwithstanding she was as little liable to the charge of excessive timidity and su perflous coyness as any of her sex, should also have insisted on being married on the morning of the last day of the carnival. Her gallant and venerable suitor contended most tenderly and perseveringly against this proposal, urging the propriety of their being united in broad day-light, with the decorums and ceremonies proper to the occasion; but he was forced to yield the point at last, as the lady declared that unless the marriage took place at the time she proposed, it must be delayed until after Lent; and to this alternative Mons. Du Lac was too gallant and impatient a lover to agree. I believe that madame was sensible of the queer figure her withered, weak-legged, and sour-visaged Adonis would make, as principal in a marriage ceremony, and was willing he should escape observation among the crowd of bridegrooms whom she expected the last day of the carnival would bring to the church of Adayes.

"At length the day arrived. At half past three in the morning, the sexton threw open the doors of the little log church, and awoke the village with a most furious and discordant peal on the cracked bells. The good Baltazar Polo appeared at the appointed hour, and the building began to fill with the candidates for matrimony and their relatives. Couple came flocking in after couple. Here you might see by the light of lanterns, which the negroes stood holding at the door, a young fellow in a short cloak and broad-brimmed palmetto hat and feathers, with a face in which were mingled the features of Spain with those of the Aborigines, walking with an indifferent and listless air, and supporting a young woman, whose rounder and more placid, though not less dark countenance, was half covered by the manto, or thick Spanish veil, which, however, was not drawn so closely over her forehead as to hide the cluster of natural blossoms she had gathered that morning and placed there. There you might see a simpering fair one, with a complexion somewhat too rosy for our cli mate, and a wreath of artificial flowers in her hair, stepping briskly into the church on pointed toe, leaning on the arm of her betrothed, whose liveliness of look and air needed not the help of his cocked hat and powdered locks, and long-skirted coat of sky-blue, to tell that he was a Frenchman. In others you might remark a whimsical blending of costume, and a perplexing amalgamation of the features of different races, that denoted their mixed origin. Nearly all came protected with ample clothing against the inclemency of the weather, which, lately mild and serene, bad changed during the course of the night to cold and damp, with a strong wind, driving across the sky vast masses of vapour, of a shadowy and indistinct outline. Fourteen couples at length took their place in the nave of the church, in two opposite rows, with a

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