Cousin Sally was immediately taken into their confidence. The news of the engagement was broken to her by Molly herself.
"Oh, what a sly-boots you were!" exclaimed the marchioness. "Philippe was right about your knowing too much about how persons ought to love not to be in love yourself. Well, my dear, I know you will be happy, and as for that Green—I hardly know how to say how happy he should be. He is not one-half so good looking as my boy, but never mind, child, I know just how clever and good and intelligent he is. He is much more suitable for you. He has the imagination that Philippe lacks. Tut—tut, I know perfectly well where my dear son falls short. There is no poetry in his make up. His father and I have often wondered at it. He looks so poetical and is all prose."
The marchioness took arrangements for the wedding into her own hands. Getting married in Paris if you happen to be foreigners, is no easy matter. There is enough red tape connected with it to reach all the way across the Atlantic; but Sally Bolling d'Ochtè was quite equal to cope with it. It took several weeks and much signing and countersigning. Birth certificates had to be obtained from Kentucky as well as baptismal certificates for Molly. The law did not seem to be so strict concerning the man.
"It does not seem fair," declared Kent. "These Frenchies will let a man get married without any proof of his being born; but a woman, forsooth, must first prove she is born and that she has been christened before she is allowed to enter into the holy state of matrimony."
All the papers were finally obtained, however, and Molly and her professor were married very quietly at the Protestant Episcopal Church, with no one present but the near friends and relatives. It all went as merry as a marriage bell should, but does not always go. No one wept but Polly Perkins; but Jo declared he always was a "slobber baby."
Molly naturally was married in blue, her own blue. The dressmaker almost cried when she was told that it was a wedding dress she was making, because it was not to be of white.
"Ah, the blonde bride is so wonderful and so rare! I could create for Mademoiselle a dress that would be the talk of Paris. With that hair and such fairness of complexion—well, never mind, I will still make her as beautiful as the dawn." And so she did.
After the ceremony, a wedding breakfast followed at the home of the good Cousin Sally, who felt like weeping but refrained for fear of casting a cloud on Molly's day; but it was noticed that she was especially attentive and kind to poor emotional Polly, showing that she appreciated his feelings and longed to show hers.
Molly and Edwin went on their wedding trip to—But is it kind to follow them? Let them have their solitude à deux. They are well able to take care of each other without our assistance.
They joined Mrs. Brown in a month and went back to Kentucky with her, leaving Judy and Kent to continue their art studies in Paris.