a Milky Way, with a half wreath of orange-blossoms, the silvery gauzes of her protecting veil floating back from her forehead, strayed on at the head of the little parade.  She was wrapped in the delicious reverie of the wedding-day.  She was not yellow nor meagre, nor uglier than herself, as so many brides contrive to be.  Her air of delicacy and tenderness was a blossom of character, not a canker of ill-health.  Her color was hardly raised, though her head was perpetually bent.  Fortnoye, holding her on his firm arm, seemed like a man walking through enchantments.  Just behind, protecting Madame Kranich with an action of effusive gallantry that must have been seen to be conceived, walked the baron de Rouviere, his brave knotted hands, for which he had not found any gloves, busily occupied in pointing out the animated rarities that to him seemed most worthy of selection.  The hilarious hyenas, the seals, the polar bears plunging from their lofty rocks, all attracted his commendation; and we, who walked behind in such order as our friendships or familiarity taught us, were perpetually tripping upon his honest figure brought to a halt before some object more than usually interesting.  Exclamations of delight at the bride’s beauty, politely wrapped in whispers, arose on all sides as we penetrated the throng:  it was a proud thing to be a part of a procession so distinguished.  My good Joliet beamed with complacency, and drove his little herd up and down and across and about till the greater part of the garden was explored.  The zoological garden of Brussels has the beauty of not showing too obviously the character of a prison.  It is extensive, umbrageous, and the poor captives within its borders have enough air and space around their eyes to give them a semblance of liberty.  For the special feast-day on which we visited it the place had been arranged with particular adaptation to the character of the time.  There were elephant-races and rides upon the camels free to all ladies who would make the venture.  In addition to the zebras, gnus and Shetlands, there was that species of race-horse which never wins and never spoils a course, being of wood and constructed to go round in a tent, and never to arrive anywhere or lose any prizes.  The pelicans were in high excitement, for all along their beautiful little river, where it winds through bowery trees, a profusion of living fish had been emptied and confined here and there by grated dams, so that the awkward birds had opportunity to angle in perfect freedom and to their hearts’ content.  In the more wooded part of the garden a mimic hunt had been arranged, and sportsmen in correct suits of green, with curly brass horns and baying hounds, coursed through the grounds, following a stag which, though mangy and asthmatic, may yet have been a descendant of the fawn that fed Genevieve of Brabant.  We had re-entered one of the grand alleys, and were receiving again the little tribute of encomiums which the greater privacy of the groves had pretermitted—­we were parading happily along, conscious of nothing to be ashamed of, our orange-blossoms glistening, our veil flying, our broadcloth and wedding-favors gleaming—­when we met another group, which, though more furtively, bore that matrimonial character which distinguished our own.