ill agree with me that during no other moment of
your life were you more inclined to irritability.

What can you say to the cousins who kiss you, to the aunts who cling
round your neck and weep into your waistcoat, to all these smiling faces
ranged one beyond the other before you, to all those eyes which have
been staring at you for twelve hours past, to all those outbursts of
affection which you have not sought, but which claim a word from the
heart in reply?

At the end of such a day one's very heart is foundered. You say to
yourself: "Come, is it all over? Is there yet a tear to wipe away,
a compliment to receive, an agitated hand to clasp? Is every one
satisfied? Have they seen enough of the bridegroom? Does any one want
any more of him? Can I at length give a thought to my own happiness,
think of my dear little wife who is waiting for me with her head buried
in the folds of her pillow? Who is waiting for me!" That flashes through
your mind all at once like a train of powder. You had not thought of
it. During the whole of the day this luminous side of the question had
remained veiled, but the hour approaches, at this very moment the silken
laces of her bodice are swishing as they are unloosed; she is blushing,
agitated, and dare not look at herself in the glass for fear of noting
her own confusion. Her aunt and her mother, her cousin and her bosom
friend, surround and smile at her, and it is a question of who shall
unhook her dress, remove the orange-blossoms from her hair, and have the
last kiss.

Good! now come the tears; they are wiped away and followed by kisses.
The mother whispers something in her ear about a sacrifice, the future,
necessity, obedience, and finds means to mingle with these simple but
carefully prepared words the hope of celestial benedictions and of the
intercession of a dove or two hidden among the curtains.

The poor child does not understand anything about it, except it be that
something unheard-of is about to take place, that the young man--she
dare not call him anything else in her thoughts--is about to appear as a
conqueror and address her in wondrous phrases, the very anticipation of
which makes her quiver with impatience and alarm. The child says not a
word--she trembles, she weeps, she quivers like a partridge in a furrow.
The last words of her mother, the last farewells of her family, ring
confusedly in her ears, but it is in vain that she strives to seize on
their meaning; her m