These changes were judged to be
sufficient for my accoutrement. They might have done very well, but on
my way back I paused at a lace-shop window to inspect some present for
Francine. A band, with many banners and figures in masquerade, swept
past, followed by a shouting crowd. My friends lost me in a moment,
and I lost my way. I turned into a street which I was sure led to the
hotel, gave it up for another, lost that in a blind alley, and finally
brought up in a steep, narrow canon, where I was forced to ask a
direction. 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.
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