en, Alfred! Your mother doesn't like me. She would do
any thing to prevent your marrying me. The reasons I will tell you at
another time. If you go home and talk with her and Hope Wayne, you can
not help betraying that you are engaged to me; and--you know your mother,
Alfred--she would openly oppose the marriage, and I don't know what she
might not say to my father."

Fanny spoke clearly and rapidly, but calmly. Alfred looked utterly
bewildered.

"It's a great pity, isn't it?" said he, feebly. "What do you think we had
better do?"

"We must be married, Alfred, dear!"

"Yes; but when, Fanny?"

"To-day," said Fanny, firmly, and putting out her hand to her beloved.

He seized it mechanically.

"To-day, Fanny?" asked he, after a pause of amazement.

"Certainly, dear--to-day. I am as ready now as I shall be a year hence."

"But what will my mother say?" inquired Alfred, in alarm.

"It will be too late for her to say any thing. Don't you see, Alfred,
dear!" continued Fanny, in a most assuring tone, "that if we go to your
mother and say, 'Here we are, married!' she has sense enough to perceive
that nothing can be done; and after a little while all will be smooth
again?"

Her lover was comforted by this view. He was even pleased by the audacity
of the project.

"I swear, Fanny," said he, at length, in a more cheerful and composed
voice, "I think it's rather a good idea!"

"Of course it is, dear. Are you ready?"

Alfred gasped a little at the prompt question, despite his confidence.

"Why, Fanny, you don't mean actually now--this very day? Gracious!"

"Why not now? Since we think best to be married immediately and in
private, why should we put it off until to-night, or next week, when
we are both as ready now as we can be then?" asked Fanny, quietly;
"especially as something may happen to make it impossible then."

Alfred Dinks shut his eyes.

"What will your father say?" he inquired, at length, without raising his
eyelids.

"Do you not see he will have to make up his mind to it, just as your
mother will?" replied Fanny.

"And my father!" said Alfred, in a state of temporary blindness
continued.

"Yes, and your father too," answered Fanny, both she and Alfred treating
the Honorable Budlong Dinks as a mere tender to that woman-of-war his
wife, in a way that would have been incredible to a statesman who
considered his wife a mere domestic luxury.

There was a silence of several minutes. Then Mr. Dinks