pounds a year, I felt that it should be quite enough to support a young couple in India, at least for the present.” Pelham had to look away and laugh, at the bare idea of two such innocents as General Brandon and Jack Darrell attempting to transact business, and the gravity with which General Brandon mentioned the Egyptian bonds would have provoked a laugh from a dead horse. But there was so little money concerned in the transaction that it really did not make much difference. In the course of twenty–four hours, through the good offices of the British Ambassador at the Washington office with the War Office in London, a cablegram arrived, granting an extension of leave for fourteen days to both Pelham and Darrell. Their prolonged stay in Washington had already made it necessary for them to return to India by way of Suez, and to give up their transcontinental trip. The additional two weeks gave time for the wedding preparations, which were necessarily simple for a wedding tour of two days and the sailing from New York in time to catch the next steamer of the Messageries Maritimes at Marseilles. Pelham saw Elizabeth nearly every day during the two weeks preceding the marriage, and every time he saw her the melancholy conviction came over him that she was the woman he was never to forget and never to cease to love. Mrs. Luttrell took charge of affairs, as much as Pelham would let her. She gave the newly engaged pair a large and splendid dinner in honor of their engagement, and there were other festivities of the same nature given by other persons on a smaller scale. All of Elizabeth’s former admirers, and they were legion, sent her wedding presents, and the shabby house was nearly swamped with them. Richard Baskerville was of great assistance to Pelham in putting things through, for it was Pelham who made the marriage possible. Darrell could do nothing but gaze into Elizabeth’s beautiful black eyes, and if Pelham would have let him, would have spent all the money necessary for their first–class passage to India in buying bouquets for Elizabeth. Between Richard Baskerville, already known as one of the cleverest young lawyers in Washington, and Pelham a sincere friendship sprang up, as the two men were alike in many respects.