"You saw her wear them, Aunt Maria," Natalia murmured, finally. "Then place them on me just as she would have liked them to be."
Leading her up to the cheval glass, the old lady clasped the necklace about her throat, slipped the bracelets far up her arms, and adjusted the ear-rings to her minute satisfaction; leaving for the last the veil, which she pinned to Natalia's blue-black hair with a broad band of sapphires, her own present to the bride, and one that had done duty a century before, along the banks of the James River.
"Now you are wonderfully beautiful, Natalia," she said, giving a last touch and stepping away to gain a better view of the arrangement. "Your eyes have caught the glow of the sapphires. Look at her, Millicent! Isn't she lovely?"
Any one who now sees the portrait of her, painted by Weygant, will realize how beautiful she must have been that night; for the artist seems to have caught, with a remarkable inspiration, the gorgeous depths of her eyes, and even in the canvas one sees the faint, velvety shadows that gradually faded away from her heavy black lashes. This, probably, was what accentuated their brilliancy and gave the effect of an inner, glowing light. As she faced the others and felt their admiration, the excitement rushed over her again, and for a moment she was dazzling.
Dicey was the first to turn from her and gaze towards the window.
"Do you see them coming, Mammy?" Natalia asked, still before the mirror.
"No, ma'am, dey's all done quit comin'," came Dicey's low murmur.
Natalia turned swiftly towards Mrs. Houston, searching her face for some sign of anxiety. She found none.
"You all go downstairs and entertain the people," she said at last. "Mammy will stay here with me until Morgan comes."
"I do hope they will come soon," Millicent said, kissing Natalia for the tenth time. "I'm terribly impatient and flustered, and I always get so red in the face when I am excited."