and loving heart would follow the lord of their destiny to Hades, and
wander there for evermore distracted, in the land of shadows, where
there is no light of the sun to show the way, no firm ground to stay
the tottering feet and groping hands? As for these two fair sisters in
Watteau style of blue and pink, and green and pink taffetas, lace, and
pearls, and roses--surely the daintiest, most aristocratic
shepherdesses ever beheld--one of them would have lost her graceful
equanimity, reddened with affront, and tingled to the finger-tips
with angry unbelief if she had been warned beforehand that she would
be amongst the last of the high-born, high-bred brides who would
forfeit her birthright and her presence at a Queen's Court by agreeing
to be married at the hands of a blacksmith instead of a bishop, before
the rude hymeneal altar at Gretna.

But to-night there was no alarming interlude, like a herald of evil,
to shake the nerves of the company--nothing more unpropitious than the
_contretemps_ to an unlucky lady of being overcome by the heat
and seized with a fainting-fit, which caused her over-zealous
supporters to remove her luxuriant powdered wig in order to give her
greater air and coolness, so that she was fain, the moment she
recovered, to hide her diminished head by a rapid discomfited retreat
from what remained of the revelry.

On the 21st of June the Queen and the Prince, with the Lords of the
Admiralty, inspected the fleet off Spithead. The royal yacht was
attended by a crowd of yachts belonging to the various squadrons, a
throng of steamboats and countless small boats. The Queen visited and
went over the flagship--which was the _St. Vincent_--the
_Trafalgar_, and the _Albion_. On her return to the yacht
she held a levee of all the captains of the fleet. A few days