chords of a wedding march.

There seemed to my perverted sense a certain poetic justice about
the fact that money, gained honestly but prosaically, in groceries
or gas, should go to regild an ancient blazon or prop up the
crumbling walls of some stately palace abroad.

Many thoughtful years and many cruel realities have taught me that
my gracious hostess of the "seventies" was right, and that marriage
under these conditions is apt to be much more like the comic opera
after the curtain has been rung down, when the lights are out, the
applauding public gone home, and the weary actors brought slowly
back to the present and the positive, are wondering how they are to
pay their rent or dodge the warrant in ambush around the corner.

International marriages usually come about from a deficient
knowledge of the world. The father becomes rich, the family travel
abroad, some mutual friend (often from purely interested motives)
produces a suitor for the hand of the daughter, in the shape of a
"prince" with a title that makes the whole simple American family
quiver with delight.

After a few visits the suitor declares himself; the girl is
flattered, the father loses his head, seeing visions of his loved
daughter hob-nobbing with royalty, and (intoxicating thought!)
snubbing the "swells" at home who had shown reluctance to recognize
him and his family.

It is next to impossible for him to get any reliable information
about his future son-in-law in a country where, as an American, he