The
ceremony took place in the presence of the Princesse D'Agramont,
Madame Bozier, and Cyrillon Vergniaud. When it was over the wedded
lovers and their friends returned to the Sovrani Palace, there to
join Angela who had come down from her sick room to grace the
occasion. She looked as fair and fragile as the delicate "Killmeny"
of the poet's legend, just returned from wondrous regions of
"faery," though the land poor Angela had wandered away from was the
Land of Sweet Delusion, which enchanted garden she would never enter
again. Pale and thin, with her beautiful eyes drooping wearily under
their dreamy tired lids, she was the very ghost of her former self;-
-and the child-like way in which she clung to her father, and kept
near her father always, was pathetic in the extreme. When Sylvie and
Aubrey entered, with their three companions, she advanced to greet
them, smiling bravely, though her lips quivered.
"All happiness be with you, dear!" she said softly, and she slipped
a chain of fine pearls round Sylvie's neck. "These were my mother's
pearls,--wear them for my sake!"
Sylvie kissed her in silence,--she could not say anything, even by
the way of thanks,--her heart was too full.
"We shall be very lonely without you, darling," went on Angela.
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