ll his several appointments, little and big, even to his polka-dot
scarf of blue silk, patent-leather shoes and white gaiters. Quite the
best-dressed man in the room, everybody said, and they of all the people
in the world should have known.

And the wedding!

And all that went before it, and all that took place on that joyous day;
and all that came after that happiest of events!

Ruth and Jack, with Peter's covert endorsement, had wanted to slip into
the village church some afternoon at dusk, with daddy and Peter and Miss
Felicia, and one or two more, and then to slip out again and disappear.
MacFarlane had been in favor of the old Maryland home, with Ruth's
grandmother in charge, and the neighbors driving up in mud-encrusted
buggies and lumbering coaches, their inmates warmed by roaring fires and
roaring welcomes--fat turkeys, hot waffles, egg-nogg, apple-toddy, and
the rest of it. The head of the house of Breen expressed the opinion
(this on the day Jack gave his check for the bonds prior to returning
them to Isaac, who wouldn't take a cent of interest) that the ceremony
should by all means take place in Grace Church, after which everybody
would adjourn to his house on the Avenue, where the wedding-breakfast
would be served, he being nearest of kin to the groom, and the bride
being temporarily without a home of her own--a proposition which, it is
needless to say, Jack declined on the spot, but in terms so courteous
and with so grand and distinguished an air that the head of the house of
Breen found his wonder increasing at the change that had come over the
boy since he shook the dust of the Breen home and office from his feet.

The Grande Dame of Geneseo did not agree with any of these makeshifts.
There would be no Corklesville wedding if she could help it, with gaping
loungers at the church door; nor would there be any Maryland wedding
with a ten-mile ride over rough roads to a draughty country-house, where
your back would freeze while your cheeks burned up; nor yet again any
city wedding, with an awning over the sidewalk, a red carpet and squad
of police, with Tom, Dick, and Harry inside the church, and Harry, Dick
and Tom squeezed into an oak-panelled dining-room at high noon with
every gas-jet blazing.

And she did not waste many seconds coming to this conclusion. Off went a
telegram, after hearing the various propositions, followed by a letter,
that might have melted the wires and set fire to the mail-sack,