you."

It was a well-aimed objection--but it missed the mark. A woman bent on
her marriage is a woman who can meet the objections of the whole world,
single-handed, and refute them all.

"I have provided for every thing," she said, "and I have provided for
that. I shall tell the landlady I am on my wedding-trip. I shall say
my husband is sight-seeing, on foot, among the mountains in the
neighborhood--"

"She is sure to believe that!" said Geoffrey.

"She is sure to _dis_believe it, if you like. Let her! You have only
to appear, and to ask for your wife--and there is my story proved to be
true! She may be the most suspicious woman living, as long as I am alone
with her. The moment you join me, you set her suspicions at rest. Leave
me to do my part. My part is the hard one. Will you do yours?"

It was impossible to say No: she had fairly cut the ground from under
his feet. He shifted his ground. Any thing rather than say Yes!

"I suppose _you_ know how we are to be married?" he asked. "All I can
say is--_I_ don't."

"You do!" she retorted. "You know that we are in Scotland. You know that
there are neither forms, ceremonies, nor delays in marriage, here. The
plan I have proposed to you secures my being received at the inn, and
makes it easy and natural for you to join me there afterward. The
rest is in our own hands. A man and a woman who wish to be married (in
Scotland) have only to secure the necessary witnesses and the thing is
done. If the landlady chooses to resent the deception practiced on her,
after that, the landlady may do as she pleases. We shall have gained
our object in spite of her--and, what is more, we shall have gained it
without risk to _you._"

"Don't lay it all on my shoulders," Geoffrey rejoined. "You women
go headlong at every thing. Say we are married. We must separate
afterward--or how are we to keep it a secret?"

"Certainly. You will go back, of course, to your brother's house, as if
nothing had happened."

"And what is to become of _you?_"

"I shall go to London."

"What are you to do in London?"

"Haven't I already told you that I have thought of every thing? When I
get to London I shall apply to some of my mother's old friends--friends
of hers in the time when she was a musician. Every body tells me I have
a voice--if I had only cultivated it. I _will_ cultivate it! I can live,
and live respectably, as a concert singer. I have saved money enough to
support me, while I am learn