256 THE IIOKSE, 



realization of Byron's idea of " music breathing o'er the face." 

 There comes a bride — and from tlie East. too. A peep at her 

 face, ahnost hid by clustering braids of raven hair, displays a 

 belle of an Atlantic city, and ere we have time to ask her name, 

 a lovely blonde sweeps by in a gay mantilla, changeable as the 

 hues of evening, with a hat whiter than the wing of a dove, 

 and a face faultless as Nesera. It would puzzle a Sphinx to 

 divine the cause of her radiant smile. Walks she fancy free ? 

 Has Cupid's bolt passed her innocuous ? In the centre of the 

 Pavilion stand two rival belles, of a style of beauty so varied as 

 to atti-act marked attention. The face and figure of one is 

 rounded to the complete fulness of the mould for a Juno ; while 

 the other, with the form of a sylph, and the eyes of an angel, 

 is the impersonation of delicacy and loveliness. And there 

 is a lady from the northernmost extremity of the Republic, 

 nearly allied to the Patrick Henry of the Southwest, with eyes 

 of the sweetest and most tranquil bine " that ever reflected the 

 serene heaven of a happy hearth — eyes to love, not wonder at — 

 to adore and rely upon, not admire and tremble for." And then 

 there was that beautiful belle from Scott County, and that bril- 

 liant wit from Lexington ; here, the pearl wreath strove to rival 

 the fairer brow — the ruby, a rubier lip — the diamond, a brigliter 

 eye ; there, the cornelian borrowed from the damask cheek a 

 deeper hue ; the gossamer floated round a lighter form — the 

 light plume nodded over a lighter heart. 



But what grace can flowers or sweeping plumes confer when 

 the rich smile of beauty is parting her vermilion lips, and the 

 breath of the morning, added to the excitement of the occasion, 

 have given a ripeness to her cheeks, and a fire to her eye, which, 

 to our bachelor taste, would be worth a pilgrimage to Mecca to 

 enjoy, as we did at that moment. Who can fail to detect the 

 graceful being on our left, in a Parisian hat, lined with violets, 

 whose soft liquid eye, and raven braids render her the fairest 

 gem in the brilliant cluster of Western beauties ? The flashing 

 eyes of a dark-browed matron from Missouri are roving restlessly 

 over the nodding sea of heads beneath ; and the pensive smile 

 of a fair lily, just home from school, has become absolutely 

 radiant as she shakes back, from her open brow, a flood of glis- 

 tening ringlets, and gazes down upon the multitude with the 



