CHAPTER THE LAST,
Which I know will delight you, dearest reader, as it containeth the wedding; but most especially will it delight you because it is the last. The wedding was of course a splendid one, and better still, a joyous one. Little Dame Hildreth would let no one but herself fasten so much as a bridal ornament on her beautiful young foster-child. It would be hard saying which moved fastest on the important day, her hands or her tongue.
"Just to think!" exclaimed she, as she clasped those same pearls, that had once been cast aside in scorn, upon her darling—and pure and lovely they shone among her soft, brown curls, and on her snow-white arms and neck, and around her lithe and slender waist—"to think that I could have mistaken Ferdinand, the reigning Duke of Bernstorf, for Ferdinand, the Prince. Really, though, my lady, to look at them, one does not see much difference in their appearance—they are both so handsome and grand-looking. Oh, yes! you see a vast odds in their looks—that's natural! These old eyes, I suppose, are growing dim—but they are bright enough to see that thou art the dearest, loveliest, most beautiful bride that ever the sun shone upon."