To add ‚clat to the event, it is arranged that the nuptial ceremony shall take place in the spacious old mansion of General P—­, in the city.  General P—­is a distant relation of the Rovero family.  His mansion is one of those noble old edifices, met here and there in the South—­especially in South Carolina-which strongly mark the grandeur of their ancient occupants.  It is a massive pile of marble, of mixed style of Grecian and Doric architecture, with three stories divided by projecting trellised arbours, and ornamented with fluted columns surmounted with ingeniously-worked and sculptured capitals, set off with grotesque figures.  The front is ornamented with tablets of bas-relief, variegated and chaste.  These are bordered with scroll-work, chases of flowers, graces, and historical designs.  Around the lower story, palisades and curvatures project here and there between the divisions, forming bowers shaded by vines and sweet-scented blossoms.  These are diffusing their fragrance through the spacious halls and corridors beneath.  The stately old pile wears a romantic appearance; but it has grown brown with decay, and stands in dumb testimony of that taste and feeling which prevailed among its British founders.  The garden in which it stands, once rich with the choicest flowers of every clime, now presents an area overgrown with rank weeds, decaying hedges, dilapidated walks, and sickly shrubbery.  The hand that once nurtured this pretty scene of buds and blossoms with so much care has passed away.  Dull inertness now hangs its lifeless festoons over the whole, from the vaulted hall to the iron railing enclosing the whole.

The day for consummating the nuptial ceremony has arrived; many years have passed since the old mansion witnessed such a scene.  The gay, wealthy, and intelligent of the little fashionable world will be here.  The spell of loneliness in which the old walls have so long slept will be broken.  Sparkling jewels, bland smiles, the rich decorations of former years, are to again enhance the scene.  Exhausted nature is to shake off its monotony, to be enlivened with the happiness of a seemingly happy assemblage.  A lovely bride is to be showered with smiles, congratulations, tokens of love.  Southern gallantry will doff its cares, put on its smiling face.  Whatever may smoulder beneath, pleasure and gaiety will adorn the surface.

Franconia sits in her spacious chamber.  She is arrayed in flowing n‚glig‚; a pensive smile invades her countenance; she supports her head on her left hand, the jewels on her tiny fingers sparkling though her hair.  Everything round her bears evidence of comfort and luxury; the gentle breeze, as it sweeps through the window to fan her blushing cheek, is impregnated with sweetest odours.  She contemplates the meeting of him who is to be the partner of her life; can she reconcile it?  Nay, there is something forcing itself against her will.  Her bridesmaids,—­young, gay, and accomplished,—­gather around her.  The fierce conflict raging in her bosom discloses itself; the attempt to cheer her up, under the impression that it arises from want of vigour to buoy up her sensitive system, fails.  Again she seems labouring under excitement.