n. The passer-by who obliged me was a man bearing a bag of
charcoal. He answered with a ready intelligence that did honor to his
heart and his sense of Progressive Geography. But he left on my white
waistcoat, alas! a charcoal sketch, full of chiaroscuro and _coloris_,
representing his index-finger surrounded with a sort of cloud-effect.
My waistcoat had to be given over in favor of the elder garment
buttoned up in the all-concealing overcoat.

[Illustration: ST. GUDOLE, BRUSSELS.]

The ceremonies of the day, I soon found, were to consist in an early
and informal breakfast at the house of Frau Kranich; then the civil
wedding at the mayor's office, followed by the usual church-service,
from which the Protestant godmother of Francine begged to be excused;
the day to wind up with a general dinner at a place of resort outside
the city at four o'clock, the usual dining-hour in old Brabant.

The early breakfast gave a renewal of my friendship with good Frau
Kranich and a glimpse of the bride, with her sweet, patient, dewy face
shadowed like a honey-drop in the gauzy calyx of her artisanne cap;
for she was in the simplest of morning dresses--something gray, with
a clean white apron. The quaint, old-fashioned house where we met was
decorated with exquisite trifles, the memorials of the mistress's old
fashionable taste, but scattered over the tables also were lecture
programmes, hospital reports and photographs of eminent philosophers.
As I took up for a plaything a gold pen-case, well used, which rested
on a magnificent old fan, the Kranich said, with just a reminiscence
of her former vivacity, "You find me much changed, Mr. Flemming. I
used to be the grasshopper in the fable--now I am the ant."

"I bless any change, ma'am," said I, "which increases your kindness
toward this charming girl."

"Dear Mr. Flemming," said pretty Francine, "how nice and shabby you
look! You will do admirably to stand by a poor girl--so poor that she
has hardly a bridesmaid. I hope you are as indigent as you were at
Carlsruhe." Upon this I felt very fatherly, and clasped her waist from
behind as I kissed her forehead.

The lawyer, a professionally bland old man, with a porous bald head
like an emu's egg, said as he was introduced, "Ah, I have heard of you
before, monsieur. You are the man of the two chickens."

Joliet was so enchanted with this rare joke, laughing and clapping
all his nearer neighbors on the back, that I could not but accept it