the crimson velvet chair, which was, however, almost as tall as he is.  He is short, you may remember.  As to our poor Giselle, the prettiest persons sometimes look badly as brides, and those who are not pretty look ugly.  Do you recollect that picture—­by Velasquez, is it not? of a fair little Infanta stiffly swathed in cloth of gold, as becomes her dignity, and looking crushed by it?  Giselle’s gown was of point d’Alencon, old family lace as yellow as ancient parchment, but of inestimable value.  Her long corsage, made in the fashion of Anne of Austria, looked on her like a cuirass, and she dragged after her, somewhat awkwardly, a very long train, which impeded her movement as she walked.  A lace veil, as hereditary and time-worn as the gown, but which had been worn by all the Monredons at their weddings, the present dowager’s included, hid the pretty, light hair of our dear little friend, and was supported by a sort of heraldic comb and some orange-flowers; in short, you can not imagine anything more heavy or more ugly.  Poor Giselle, loaded down with it, had red eyes, a face of misery, and the air of a martyr.  For all this her grandmother scolded her sharply, which of course did not mend matters.  ’Du reste’, she seemed absorbed in prayer or thought during the ceremony, in which I took up the offerings, by the way, with a young lieutenant of dragoons just out of the military school at Saint Cyr:  a uniform always looks well on such occasions.  Nor was Monsieur de Talbrun one of those lukewarm Christians who hear mass with their arms crossed and their noses in the air.  He pulled a jewelled prayerbook out of his pocket, which Giselle had given him.  Speaking of presents, those he gave her were superb:  pearls as big as hazelnuts, a ruby heart that was a marvel, a diamond crescent that I am afraid she will never wear with such an air as it deserves, and two strings of diamonds ‘en riviere’, which I should suppose she would have reset, for rivieres are no longer in fashion.  The stones are enormous.

“But, poor dear! she could care little for such things.  All she wanted was to get back as quickly as she could into her usual clothes.  She said to me, again and again:  ’Pray God for me that I may be a good wife.  I am so afraid I may not be.  To belong to Monsieur de Talbrun in this world, and in the next; to give up everything for him, seems so extraordinary.  Indeed, I think I hardly knew what I was promising.’  I felt sorry for her; I kissed her.  I was ready to cry myself, and poor Giselle went on:  ’If you knew, dear, how I love you! how I love all my friends! really to love, people must have been brought up together—­must have always known each other.’  I don’t think she was right, but everybody has his or her ideas about such things.  I tried, by way of consoling her, to draw her attention to the quantities of presents she had received.  They were displayed on several tables in the smaller drawing-room, but her grandmother would not let them put the name