"The Voice that breathed o'er Eden" had little to do with the magnificence of her attire, or with the brilliancy of the rose-wreathed bridesmaids, young girls of specially selected beauty and elegance who were all more or less disappointed in failing to win the millionaire themselves.

For these youthful persons in their 'teens had social ambitions hidden in hearts harder than steel--"a good time" of self-indulgence and luxury was all they sought for in life--in fact, they had no conception of any higher ideal.

The millionaire himself, though old, maintained a fairly middle-aged appearance--he was a thin, wiry, well-preserved man, his wizened and furrowed countenance chiefly showing the marks of Time's ploughshare.
It would have been difficult to say why, out of all the feminine butterflies hovering around him, he had chosen Lydia Herbert,--but he was a shrewd judge of character in his way, and he had decided that as she was not in her first youth it would be more worth her while to conduct herself decorously as wife and housekeeper, and generally look after his health and comfort, than it would be for a less responsible woman.

Then, she had "manner,"-- her appearance was attractive and she wore her clothes well and stylishly.

All this was enough for a man who wanted some one to attend to his house and entertain his friends, and he was perfectly satisfied with himself as he repeated after the clergyman the words, "With my body I thee worship, and with all my worldly goods I thee endow," knowing that "with his body" he had never worshipped anything, and that the "endowment" of his worldly goods was strictly limited to certain settlements.