Fred sent his young friend and cousin, by way of reply, a big packet of manuscript, the leaves of which were of all sizes, over which he had poured forth torrents of poetry, amorous and descriptive, under the title:  At Sea.

Never would he have dared to show her this if the ocean had not lain between them.  He was frightened when his packet had been sent.  His only comfort was in the thought that he had hypocritically asked Jacqueline for her literary opinion of his verses; but she could not fail, he thought, to understand.

Long before an answer could have been expected, he got another letter, sky-blue this time, much longer than the first, giving him an account of Giselle’s wedding.

“Your mother and I went together to Normandy, where the marriage was to take place after the manner of old times, ’in the fashion of the Middle Ages,’ as our friends the Wermants said to me, who might perhaps not have laughed at it had they been invited.  Madame de Monredon is all for old customs, and she had made it a great point that the wedding should not take place in Paris.  Had I been Giselle, I should not have liked it.  I know nothing more elegant or more solemn than the entrance of a bridal party into the Madeleine, but we shall have to be content with Saint-Augustin.  Still, the toilettes, as they pass up the aisle, even there, are very effective, and the decoration of the tall, high altar is magnificent.  Toc!  Toc!  First come the beadles with their halberds, then the loud notes of the organ, then the wide doors are thrown open, making a noise as they turn on their great hinges, letting the noise of carriages outside be heard in the church; and then comes the bride in a ray of sunshine.  I could wish for nothing more.  A grand wedding in the country is much more quiet, but it is old-fashioned.  In the little village church the guests were very much crowded, and outside there was a great mob of country folk.  Carpets had been laid down over the dilapidated pavement, composed principally of tombstones.  The rough walls were hung with scarlet.  All the clergy of the neighborhood were present.  A Monsignor—­ related to the Talbruns—­pronounced the nuptial benediction; his address was a panegyric on the two families.  He gave us to understand that if he did not go back quite as far as the Crusades, it was only because time was wanting.

“Madame de Monredon was all-glorious, of course.  She certainly looked like an old vulture, in a pelisse of gray velvet, with a chinchilla boa round her long, bare neck, and her big beak, with marabouts overshadowing it, of the same color.  Monsieur de Talbrun —­well!  Monsieur de Talbrun was very bald, as bald as he could be.  To make up for the want of hair on his head, he has plenty of it on his hands.  It is horrid, and it makes him look like an animal.  You have no idea how queer he looked when he sat down, with his big, pink head just peeping over the back of