to half think I would let them, and then backed
out and vowed I would have no husband but Art--and was generally so
impressed with the risks he ran that I believe she even wept over
his prospective unhappiness. But he would have his way; he didn't
want a housekeeper; he didn't want a well informed young lady; his
shirt-buttons and stocking-darning weren't likely to depend upon his
wife; he should hate a patient Grizzle; he didn't marry for his
friends--you can imagine the rash arguments. But I gave him a last
chance of escape, for the night before we were married; when I'd given
away all my old clothes, and the license was bought, the ring in his
breast-pocket, and the wedding breakfast being laid in the next room, I
said to him before all of them in papa's study:

"Ronayne, don't you want one more chance of freedom? Are you frightened
about to-morrow morning, and the pell-mell household mamma promises you?
Because if you are, I'll let you off now. You may run away in the night.
I'll be a forsaken maiden, and papa shan't have the loch dragged, or
advertise a 'Mysterious and Heart-Rending Disappearance.'"

"Too late. It's a hopeless case. I'm much too far gone for that. And I'm
not going to help you to get rid of me, Mistress Lil."

I _was_ frightened rather, and then and there I made papa give me a
five-pound note to run away from Ronayne with in case I found, during
our wedding journey, that I'd made a mistake and Art was my only true
husband after all. Ronayne added five pounds more so that I could run
away first-class, and have something with which to bribe accomplices!
And that ten pounds is in my jewel-case now, and I think I shall keep it
for my daughter, and give it her on her wedding-day as a reserve fund,
in case she needs it as her mother once pretended to fear she herself
might do.

However, for once I was discreet, and answered Mrs. Malise that I should
like to come, but must see my husband before promising ourselves. Then I
asked to see my small friend; but his mother, consulting her watch,
begged me to excuse his non-appearance to-day, for this was just the
moment when his nurse would be laying him down for his nap; and though
often he would not sleep at all, yet system was everything, and he had
to lie in his little bed two hours, though his eyes were broad open all
the while.

"But will he lie there so long without crying?"

"Oh, two or three times he nearly cried himself into spasms because he