In their round of shopping, the Harrises saw an ideal robe being made for an American belle.  It was composed entirely of flowers, a skirt of roses of different tints, with a waist of lovely rose buds, and over all a veil with crystal drops in imitation of the morning dew.  “A gem of a dress for some fairy,” thought Lucille.

Promptly at six o’clock Gertrude and Lucille drove to the railway station, and welcomed back George and Colonel Harris, and after dinner all went to the opera.  Between the acts Gertrude and George told much of their late experiences.  George said that Colonel Harris had become greatly interested in their scheme to build in America an ideal plant and town, and that he was anxious to return home as he felt that one’s work must be done early, as life was short at best.

Gertrude explained to George all that had been done in preparing for the wedding, and said that she would be ready soon, that her mother and Lucille approved of their wedding trip of two weeks in Switzerland, and then Gertrude added, “I shall be ready, George, when you are, to return to America and to aid you all I can.”

Colonel Harris suggested a ride to Versailles, and Monday morning at nine o’clock Gaze’s coach and four drove to the Grand Hotel, and six outside seats which had been reserved for the Harris party were filled.  The coachman drove down the Avenue de l’Opera and into the Place du Carrousel, stopping a moment that all might admire the artistic pavilions of the Louvre, and the statue to the memory of Leon Gambetta, “Father of the Republic.”  Thence they rode out of the Court of the Tuileries, across the Place de la Concord, and down the charming Champs Elysees.  On the left stands the Palais de l’Industrie, where the salon or annual exhibition of modern paintings and sculptures occurs in May and June.  On the right is the Palais de l’Elysee, the official residence of the French president.

George recalled that in these gardens of Paris, in 1814, Emperors Alexander and Francis, King Frederick III., and others sang a Te Deum, in thanksgiving for their great victory over Napoleon I.; that here the English, Prussian, and Russian troops bivouacked, and that in the spring of 1871, Emperor William and his brilliant staff led the German troops beneath the Arc de Triomphe, while the German bands played “Die Wacht am Rhine.”

The coach passed through the Bois de Boulogne, in sight of lovely lakes, quaint old windmills, and across famous Longchamps, where after the Franco-German War under a bright sky, in the presence of the French president, his cabinet, the senate and chamber of deputies, in full dress, and a million of enthusiastic citizens, Grevy and Gambetta presented several hundred silk banners to the French army.  Thence the drive was along the left bank of the river till the ruins of St. Cloud were reached, where Napoleon III.  Unwittingly signed his abdication when he declared war against Prussia.