As the bridesmaid sat down rather wearily in her own room, and unfastened the diamond monogram brooch—"the gift of the bridegroom"—the tears that had been in her heart all day came into her eyes; Di's slow, difficult tears.
What a mass of illusions are torn from us by the first applauded mercenary marriage that comes very near to us in our youth! Death, when he draws nigh for the first time, at least leaves us our illusions; but this voluntary death in life, from which there is no resurrection, filled Di's soul with loathing compassion. She bowed her fair head on her hands and wept over the girl who had never been her friend, but whose fate might at one time have been her own.
CHAPTER VII.
"Broad his shoulders are and strong;
And his eye is scornful,
Threatening and young."
Emerson.
RHERE was the usual crush at the Speaker's, the usual sprinkling of stars and orders, and splendid uniforms. If it made Di feel limp to look at other people's diamonds, she would be very limp to-night.
Two men with their backs to the wall, somewhat withdrawn from the moving pressure of the crowd, were commenting in the absolute privacy of a large gathering on the stream of arrivals.