"Happy is the bride that the sun shines on," says the old proverb; and
it was as sunny and auspicious a morning as heart could wish. The
bride looked uncommonly beautiful; but, in fact, what woman does not
look interesting on her wedding-day? I know no sight more charming and
touching than that of a young and timid bride, in her robes of virgin
white, led up trembling to the altar. When I thus behold a lovely
girl, in the tenderness of her years, forsaking the house of her
fathers and the home of her childhood; and, with the implicit
confiding, and the sweet self-abandonment, which belong to woman,
giving up all the world for the man of her choice: when I hear her, in
the good old language of the ritual, yielding herself to him "for
better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, to
love, honour and obey, till death us do part," it brings to my mind
the beautiful and affecting self-devotion of Ruth: "Whither thou goest
I will go, and where thou lodgest I will lodge; thy people shall be my
people, and thy God my God."
The fair Julia was supported on the trying occasion by Lady
Lillycraft, whose heart was overflowing with its wonted sympathy in
all matters of love and matrimony.
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