The Wheeling daily intelligencer. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1865-1903, 1868-09-12

4 falling rain.drop was a diamond, when
1t was caught. Wisely enough, Mrs.
i Huydekoper did not attempt the mono
grams. There were kindly people,
| friends, there too, for Henrietta's sweet,
If spirited, ways and words had always
caused her to be warmly cared for: and
there was the train of the disappoint-
ed lovers, who, since they could not
stand in the bridegroom's place Them
selves, went, perhaps, in order that
| they might curse Don Idefonso with all
their hearts. The dust of the streets
| surrounded the coaches and blew after
1 them and before them in such golden
clouds as encircled the heather gods
and goddesses when they moved; the
bridal train at last swept up the aisle to
the clash of heavenly music, line OF
light and glory. -t1
The White Lady OF Avenel was not
whittier than the bride that day, white as
| the great pearls upon her throati the
stars of the sky seemed in her dark and
steady eyes. She was moving like one
in a dream; neither ceremony nor sac
rament had any meaning to her; her
soul entered into nothing of it-in the
next life she would no more remember
| 1t than an awakened sleeper remembers
la somnambulistic freak of the night.
Not so with the stately figure by her
side-stately for all his shriveled stature
it was real, vivid life with him he
he was Jealous of all this staring throng
that beheld her, yet proud to wear her
on his arm before them he wore also,
but In her honor, every star and ribbon
that his race had ever received; blur
of diamonds on his coat; he would have
omitted one of them that day as soon as
have dropped a title, name, a rent
roll from his list: but this new decora-
ton was something worth them all-he
had laid them and his devotion at her
feet.
Again the rich resembling music
pealed; the beautiful bride turned and
paused one instant like a splendid an
gel ready for flight before them all
then the train swept out, and all the
world prepared to follow to Mrs. Huy-
dekoper's drawing-rooms in Sumach
Square, wonderful as the rooms were
with flowers and sunlight.
AS the bride of the De Isla took her
place beside her husband under the
arch of the long drawing room and its
canopy OF woven orange blossoms,
little incident marred the scene with
sort of i'll omen-an incident quickly
forgotten in another, and both for the
time, forgotten together as the tide CT
guests flowed in with their rustling
trains and delicate voices. 1t was Just
as the mother of the bride and the init
mate family friends were saluting her,
and young M'Lean, whose cousin had,
us II were, COnpelleu MS presence,
moved forward in his turn to address
her. He bent low over her hand for one
long breathing-space; but as he raised
his head the white face of his had be-.
come empurpled, and then little red
stream gushed from between his lips,
and the Sonora De Isla Y Pasamonte
caught and Kept the wild, cruel look of
his eyes, with death in them, before he
was borne from the place. The Senior
De1sla was looking at his wife at that
moment in rapture, and all at once
he cried: "Oh fatal cSLrelLG mia the
pearlsi the pearls !"
The pearls? There were no pearls.
Instead, their golden wire alone encir-
cled the swans throat of his wife, and
there lay upon il aud fell away from il
in abesIos-like flakes and linty ash
down the sheen of her satin and cloud
of her lace (if any one had counted
them) thirty-four pinches of gray dust.
The pearls had persisted. They had
persisted as ancient pearls, long hidden
away, will do at last beneath the quick
corrOsion on their fibres of the unwont-
ed heat and light and air. And Henri
eta, longing, longing to escape, where
in the rooms above she might take the
last breath of dying lips, the last look
OF dying eyes, looked vacantly into
tho opposing mirrors. And seeing
there II ghost, she saw, too, Don Ilde-
fonSO lightly flirting away those per-
ished pearls with her handkerchief.
And she knew that she had sold her
self, and that her price was dust and
ashes!