a woman newly married. Among the Greeks it was customary for the bride to be conducted from her father's house to her husband's in a chariot, the evening being chosen for that purpose, to conceal her blushes; she was placed in the middle, her husband sitting on one side, and one of her most intimate friends on the other; torches were carried before her, and she was entertained in the passage with a song suitable to the occasion. When they arrived at their journey's end, the axle-tree of the coach they rode in was burnt, to signify that the bride was never to return to her father's house. Among the Romans, when a bride was carried home to her husband's house, she was not to touch the threshold at her first entrance, but was to leap over it.