Bella's wedding-day rose as fair and bright as a day could be.

The waning summer seemed to have returned to the freshness of early June, and to have determined that the bride, whatever else might be wanting, should have all the blessing sunshine could give her.

Lucia, however, after that first eager look out at the weather which we naturally give on the morning of a fete-day, began to be conscious of a mood far too depressed and uneasy to be in harmony with either the weather or the occasion.

Partly perhaps it was that her eyes had turned from habit to Maurice's window, which when he was at home was always open early, but whose closed up, solitary look now, reminded her of his absence; partly that the words her mother had spoken the previous evening lingered in her mind, and not only brought back more forcibly than ever all her puzzled and anxious thought about the past and future, but seemed to throw a dark but impalpable cloud over the happiness of the present.
But there was too much business to be done for her to spend time in dreaming, and by the time she was ready for breakfast, the inclination to dream had almost past away.

After breakfast, and after the various daily affairs which in the small household fell to her share to attend to, there were flowers to be gathered, and a short visit to Mr.Leigh to be paid; and by the time all this was done, it was time to dress.
If this dressing was a longer process than usual, and if Lucia was a little fanciful and hard to please over it, no one need be surprised.
Everybody knows that at a wedding, the bridesmaids rank next in importance to the bride, and far before the bridegroom, who, for that day at least, sinks into the most miserable insignificance.