The warm congratulations were followed by a gay, festive scene, in which glad young hearts had a merry-making time.

How beautiful the bride looked! and how proudly the gaze of her newly-installed husband turned ever and ever toward her, move which way she would among her maidens, as if she were a magnet to his eyes.

He was standing in the portico that looked out upon the distant river, about an hour after the wedding, talking with one of the bridesmaids, when the latter, pointing to the sky, said, laughing-- "There comes your fate." Emerson's eyes followed the direction of her finger.
"You speak in riddles," he replied, looking back into the maiden's face.

"What do you see ?" "A little white blemish on the deepening azure," was answered.
"There it lies, just over that stately horse-chestnut, whose branches arch themselves into the outline of a great cathedral window." "A scarcely perceptible cloud ?" "Yes, no bigger than a hand; and just below it is another." "I see; and yet you still propound a riddle.

What has that cloud to do with my fate ?" "You know the old superstition connected with wedding-days ?" "What ?" "That as the aspect of the day is, so will the wedded life be." "Ours, then, is full of promise.