"Real money," said Midas.
"Done!" ejaculated the miller.
And so the papers settling five million dollars in approved securities upon the miller's daughter were executed, and three months later that invincible old bachelor, John W. Midas, for whom countless widows had set their caps in vain, was led to the altar by the blushing and happy Gasmerilda. The groom's gift to the bride was a princely one, consisting of ten million dollars' worth of the preferred stock of the newly organized American Straw and Hay Trust, of which Colonel Midas was president, a concern controlling all the leading straw industries of the United States and some said of foreign lands as well. The papers called it the most brilliant match of the season, but, none the less, the bride had some misgivings. She knew, and somehow or other in the perspective of the vista of wedded bliss ahead of her, no larger than a pin-head, she seemed at times to see the first faint symptoms of a cloud which might sooner or later obscure the whole heavens; aye, even that vast stretch of blue that reached from the easternmost part of New York to the westernmost boundaries of Reno, Nevada. Still, back of this was a silver—nay, a golden—lining, for Gasmerilda was now the possessor in her own right of five million dollars in real money, and with such a possession in hand one can stand a good deal of domestic misunderstanding.
And even then there was the chance that the sporting instincts of Colonel Midas would prove to be such that he would admire the genius back of the transmutation that had originally won him—in addition to which was the other fact that already, without a bale in sight, he had sold the public over fifty millions' worth of the common stock in the United States Straw and Hay Trust at 97-7/8.
The first check out of Gasmerilda's new account was as follows:
New York, January 17, 1911
No. 1
Pay to the order of The Fairy's Aid Society of America
Seven hundred and fifty thousand Dollars
($750,000.00)
GASMERILDA MILLER MIDAS
And she lived extravagantly forever afterward.