endour which her most extravagant wishes had never imagined,
and at the same time with the keen feeling of an affectionate heart,
which knows that all the enchantment that surrounds her is the work of
the great magician Love.

The Countess Amy, therefore--for to that rank she was exalted by her
private but solemn union with England's proudest Earl--had for a time
flitted hastily from room to room, admiring each new proof of her lover
and her bridegroom's taste, and feeling that admiration enhanced as
she recollected that all she gazed upon was one continued proof of his
ardent and devoted affection. "How beautiful are these hangings! How
natural these paintings, which seem to contend with life! How richly
wrought is that plate, which looks as if all the galleons of Spain had
been intercepted on the broad seas to furnish it forth! And oh, Janet!"
she exclaimed repeatedly to the daughter of Anthony Foster, the close
attendant, who, with equal curiosity, but somewhat less ecstatic
joy, followed on her mistress's footsteps--"oh, Janet! how much more
delightful to think that all these fair things have been assembled by
his love, for the love of me! and that this evening--this very evening,
which grows darker every instant, I shall thank him more for the love
that has created such an unimaginable paradise, than for all the wonders
it contains."

"The Lord is to be thanked first," said the pretty Puritan, "who gave
thee, lady, the kind and courteous husband whose love has done so much
for thee. I, too, have done my poor share. But if you thus run wildly
from room to room, the toil of my crisping and my curling pins will
vanish like the frost-work on the window when the sun is high."

"Thou sayest true, Janet," said the young and beautiful Countess,
stopping suddenly from her tripping race of enraptured delight, and
looking at herself from head to foot in a large mirror, such as she had
never before seen, and which, indeed, had few to match it even in the
Queen's palace--"thou sayest true, Janet!" she answered, as she saw,
with pardonable self-applause, the noble mirror reflect such charms as
were seldom presented to its fair and polished surface; "I have more of
the milk-maid than the countess, with these cheeks flushed with haste,
and all these brown curls, which you laboured to bring to order,
straying as wild as the tendrils of an unpruned vine. My falling ruff is
chafed too, and shows the neck and bosom more than is mode