The cord which has so long bound us together, my child, is broken now, and I must give to your husband the authority over thee which God gave me. If thou art happy - and may Mary ever grant it! - this will never again be thy home; but, should grief find thee, I am thy mother still. And a mother's arms are ever open to her children. Like thee, I left my mother to follow my husband. Some day thy children will leave thee so. When that day comes, I charge thee, bless them as I now bless thee. When the birds are grown of wing, the old nest cannot hold them. It is too small. May God and Mary bless thee, my child. May they and all the saints have thee in their tender keeping, and bestow upon thee a child of comfort such as thou hast been to me."

Among other brides who regard the girdle as an essential part of the wedding dress is the Armenian, whose long and trailing gown of smooth silk richly interwoven with gold is bound about the waist with a golden girdle. The Armenian bride wears a wreath of white flowers and a white veil falling over a shower of brilliant gold streamers.

These reflections of the brides of other lands and their times prove that various adjuncts to the wedding toilet appeal to various brides as the most important part of the whole sartorial scheme.

To make white the major note of the dress of the English bride has been a leading characteristic through-out the nation's history, and the adjunct to the dress that is held in highest repute is the veil that covers the face and hair, or, at any rate, the hair of the bride. It is the prerogative of the Royal bride in England to go to the altar with her face unveiled, probably because in ancient times it was deemed necessary to identify the bride's features, and not to leave an opportunity open for substituting another woman.

Several modern brides are adopting the royal practice of unveiling the face as they go to the altar, finding the plan satisfactory because of the facilities it affords for dressing the hair and arranging the veil before the wedding in such a manner that it need not be disturbed until the moment comes for doffing it altogether, and putting on the going-away costume for the honeymoon. But mark the differences that set apart the marriage habiliments of the . bride of to-day from those of olden times. There was a period in which girls at their weddings wore their hair flowing over their shoulders. Of the sixteen-year-old Princess Elizabeth, daughter of James I., whose marriage to Frederick, the Elector Palatine, in 1612, was the foundation of a dynasty of Protestant kings for Great Britain and Ireland, it is written that she went to be wedded in a dress of silver stuff embroidered with silver, pearls, and precious stones, with a train so long that was borne by twelve or fifteen fair young girls.

The sword ceremony, signifying the husband s authority, performed at a wedding at Ramallah, Palestine

Photo, Underwood

Her hair flowed freely down as low as the knee, after the fashion adopted by virgins at their weddings, and she bore in her hand a diadem of pure gold set with rich jewels. After the solemnisation of holy matrimony, the princess changed her dress for one embroidered with gold, and put up her hair.

A chronicler of the period narrates that the demeanour of the light-hearted girl during the bridal ceremony was held to be prophetic of evil.

" While the Archbishop of Canterbury was solemnising the marriage, some erus-cations and lightnings of joy appeared in her countenance that expressed more than an ordinary smile, being almost elated to a laughter, which could not clear the air of her fate, but was rather a forerunner of more sad and dire events." It may be added that the union of the Royal pair was a happy one as regards the mutual affection of the prince and princess, but was doomed to be unfortunate in the loss sustained by the Elector of his hereditary dominions when he consented to be chosen King of Bohemia. But the princess was always known as the Queen of Hearts, because all the people loved her. It was from her twelfth child that the House of Brunswick inherits the crown of this kingdom.

The reign of King James I. was famous for the sumptuous and extravagant fashions of the day, the verdingales and periwigs, powdered frizzles, and the loose-lock, or love-lock, which, amongst other vanities, roused the disgusted Bishop Hall to make them the subject of a denunciatory sermon.

Blue the Colour of Chastity

Before this period - namely, bstween the years 1560 and 1574, in the reign of Charles IX. of France - it is narrated of the women of France that a girl of the people was, in the majority of cases, married in a gown made of cloth, with bands of black velvet and open sleeves which hung to the gr6und, lined with velvet. Young ladies of rank chose their own wedding toilets according to personal caprice and the edicts of the changeable fashions of the day.

It must be remembered that in those times a very strict line was drawn between what the nobles and the bourgeois might wear. There was no apeing the fashions of the wealthy then by buying cheap stuffs and imitation jewellery. Either a woman could afford to dress extravagantly, and did so, or she could not afford it, and was habited in modest apparel.

Nevertheless, it was customary to set apart for such an important occasion as a wedding some distinctive attire. In records of the reign of Queen Elizabeth bridal lace is frequently mentioned, and this lace, the experts tell us, was of a blue colour, and was made at Coventry for the use of wedding guests, until the severe creed of the Puritans caused the wearing of such vanities to be a renounced frivolity.

Blue has always been the symbolical colour of chastity, a fact that will be noticed in paintings of the Virgin executed by the Old Masters, and doubtless the blue lace of the Elizabethan days would be worn in allusion to the bridal tradition.

Pale blue is the nuptial colour of Russia, in which country only among the rich and cosmopolitan is the bridal robe made entirely of white material, or are orange-blossoms worn. The betrothal rings, to which so great a significance is attached by rich and poor and high and low in Russia, which are bought from the clergy and blessed by them, are made of gold or silver set with turquoise. The poorest of the poor substitute for the precious metals, and the real gem, a tin ring set with a tiny piece of pale blue stone.

The Revival of Silver Tissue

The trousseau designers of the twentieth century search the archives of the past for hints, and are responsible for the revival of silver tissue. That it was in the eighteenth century, as well as in the seventeenth, regarded as a suitable and very beautiful fabric for the making of wedding frocks, a description of a Venetian wedding testifies. Concerning it the chronicler has left a striking picture. "All the ladies, except the bride, were dressed in their black gowns with large hoops.

The gowns were straight bodied, with very long trains, the trains tucked up on one side of the hoop with a prodigious large tassel of diamonds. Their sleeves were covered up to their shoulders with falls of the finest Brussels lace, a drawn tucker of the same round the bosom, adorned with rows of the finest pearls, each the size of a gooseberry, till the rows descended below the top of the stomacher; then two rows of pearls/ which came from the back of the neck, were caught up at the left side of the stomacher, and finished in two fine tassels."

Venetian Head-dress

"Their heads were dressed prodigiously high in a vast number of buckles and two long drop curls in the neck. A great number of diamond pins and strings of pearls adorned their heads, with large sultanas, or feathers, on one side, and magnificent diamond earrings. The bride was dressed in cloth of silver, made in the same fashion, and decorated in the same manner, but her brow was kept quite bare, and she had a fine diamond necklace and an enormous bouquet."

Though upon their gowns of State, for the Royal Courts, and so great an occasion as a coronation, women wear their jewels after the manner described above, actually copied from old Venetian pictures, the English bride prefers to make a less ostentatious display upon her wedding-day. The bridegroom's present to the bride, if it take the form of a suitable ornament, is worn, and if Royalty sends a gem, it is, of course, put on in acknowledgment of the great honour. To be continued.

Sorcerers putting the crown of "good luck" on the head of the painted bride. A custom that prevails at Seoul, in Korea Photo, Underwood