ink, if you feel like it, you will be able to buy the town of
Plainton; and if that doesn't make you a leading citizen in it, I don't
know what else you can do."

CHAPTER L

A CASE OF RECOGNITION

Every one in our party at the Hotel Grenade rose very early the next
morning. That day was to be one of activity and event. Mrs. Cliff, who
had not slept one wink during the night, but who appeared almost
rejuvenated by the ideas which had come to her during her sleeplessness,
now entered a protest against the proposed marriage at the American
legation. She believed that people of the position which Edna and the
captain should now assume ought to be married in a church, with all
proper ceremony and impressiveness, and urged that the wedding be
postponed for a few days, until suitable arrangements could be made.

But Edna would not listen to this. The captain was obliged, by
appointment, to be in London on the morrow, and he could not know how
long he might be detained there, and now, wherever he went, she wished to
go with him. He wanted her to be with him, and she was going. Moreover,
she fancied a wedding at the legation. There were all sorts of
regulations concerning marriage in France, and to these neither she nor
the captain cared to conform, even if they had time enough for the
purpose. At the American legation they would be in point of law upon
American soil, and there they could be married as Americans, by an
American minister.

After that Mrs. Cliff gave up. She was so happy she was ready to agree to
anything, or to believe in anything, and she went to work with heart and
hand to assist Edna in getting ready for the great event.

Mrs. Sylvester, the wife of the secretary, received a note from Edna
which brought her to the hotel as fast as horses were allowed to travel
in the streets of Paris, and arrangements were easily made for the
ceremony to take place at four o'clock that afternoon.

The marriage was to be entirely private. No one was to be present but
Mrs. Cliff, Ralph, and Mrs. Sylvester. Nothing was said to Cheditafa of
the intended ceremony. After what had happened, they all felt that it
would be right to respect the old negro's feelings and sensibilities.
Mrs. Cliff undertook, after a few days had elapsed, to explain the whole
matter to Cheditafa, and to tell him that what he had done had not been
without importance and real utility, but that it had actually united his
master and mistress by