Sir Harry Clive gave away the bride, and little Dot, his daughter, was one of the bride's-maids. Lady Clive declared that she had never been so happy in her life as in the hour when Lady Vera was married to her darling brother.
People said afterward that they were the handsomest couple ever married in London. Colonel Lockhart was so grandly handsome, Lady Vera so dazzlingly fair. Her bridal dress was a marvel of richness and beauty.
Her trousseau was all that could be desired by a woman's heart. The bridal gifts were numerous and costly. The countess was so much admired, and her sad and romantic story had excited such interest and sympathy that her friends vied with each other in the beauty and richness of their gifts, as if desirous to add in every way to the pleasure of her bridal-hour.
Colonel Lockhart scarcely knew what to give his bride, her gifts were so varied and so costly, but he studied out a design of his own, and had the jeweler reproduce it. It was a beautiful locket, containing his own picture. The setting on the carved back was a perfect crimson rose, formed of magnificent rubies.
"In memory of the rose whose message failed that night when I went back to America," he said, with a smile, as he placed it in her hand.
She sighed and smiled as memory brought back that night with its hopes, and fears, and crowning failure. She remembered the song and the rose, and how both had failed to carry their story to his wounded heart. Then she opened the locket, and forgot all else in the sight of her husband's handsome, happy face beaming out upon her.
"Oh, how I thank you, Philip," she cried, rapturously. "It is beautiful."
"The picture or the locket?" he asks, laughing, yet inwardly deeply moved.
"Both," she answers, pressing the crimson flower of her lips upon the pictured face. "This shall always be my dearest jewel!"