Page:The Homes of the New World- Vol. II.djvu/357

Rh afterwards clusters of red, poisonous berries; and the beautiful acacia, acanthus, and sycamore.

November 7th.—Scarcely had I reached St. Louis, when I was obliged to take to my bed in consequence of violent headache. My charming young friend from New England attended me as a young sister might have done. When she was obliged to leave me to proceed forward with her father, I found here an Irish servant-girl, who looked after me excellently during my short indisposition. I was soon better, and then went to pay a morning visit to the bridal pair, who are now residing at the hotel. It was in the forenoon; but the room in which the bride sate was darkened, and was only faintly lighted by the blaze of the fire. The bride was tall and delicately formed, but too thin; still she was lovely, and with a blooming complexion. She was quite young, and struck me like a rare hot-house plant scarcely able to endure the free winds of the open air. Her long taper fingers played with a number of little valuables fastened to a gold chain, which, hanging round her neck, reached to her waist. Her dress was costly and tasteful. She looked, however, more like an article of luxury than a young woman meant to be the mother of a family. The faint light of the room, the warmth of the fire, the soft, perfumed atmosphere, everything, in short, around this young bride seemed to speak of effeminacy. The bridegroom, however, was evidently no effeminate person, but a man and a gentleman. He was apparently very much enamoured of his young bride, whom he was now about to take, first to Cincinnati, and then to Florida and its perpetual summer. We were regaled with bride-cake and sweet wine.

When I left that perfumed apartment with its hot-house atmosphere and its half-daylight, in which was carefully tended a beautiful human flower, I was met by a heaven as blue as that of spring, and by a fresh, vernal