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. But it was
not only a perfect consciousness of the place in the eyes of the
multitude which she was expected to fill that made Lucia whimsical; much
stronger than even that, was the desire to please one,--the shy wish to
be admired, to see that she was so, possibly to hear it. She wondered to
herself whether she would look very awkward and rustic beside Lord
Lastingham's handsome daughters, and whether a certain Lady Adeliza,
whose name had somehow reached her ears, was much more beautiful than
she could ever hope to be. Poor child! her uneasiness on that point
would certainly have ceased if she could have peeped into Mr. Percy's
brain and seen the two portraits he carried about with him
there,--herself fresh and lovely as Psyche when she captivated Love
himself, and Lady Adeliza, highly distinguished and a little faded, but,
for a poor man, a very desirable match. She would have failed, probably,
to understand that last qualification, or to guess how it could
completely outweigh youth, beauty, and love, together; and so would have
felt even more joyous and less diffident than she did, when at last the
important business was finished, and she stepped into the carriage which
was to take her to Mrs. Bellairs'.

There she found Bella, for once tolerably subdued, and submitting with
more patience than anybody expected of her, to be dressed by her sister
and Magdalen Scott. The moment she saw Lucia, however, she whirled
herself round out of their hands, and vowed she would not do another
thing until she had had time to look at her bridesmaids both together.

"You are perfectly charming!" she exclaimed, holding up her hands in
mock ecstasy. "It's quite useless for me to dress, Elise. Who will look
at me when they are to be seen?"

"Don't be absurd, Bella. It is time you were ready now."

"I'm in despair, my dear. Give me any shabby old dress, and here, Lucia,
put this thing on, and be the bride instead of me."

She caught up her veil and threw it over Lucia's head before any one
could stop her.

"You mus