d his cravat and clothing, and rang for the servants, who took the
Squire upstairs.

There he lay as if in a drugged sleep. The surgeon drew a basin-full of
blood from him, but it was nearly six o'clock before he came to himself.
The dinner was completely disorganized, and some had gone home long ago;
but two or three remained.

'Bless my soul,' Baxby kept repeating, 'I didn't know things had come to
this pass between Dornell and his lady! I thought the feast he was
spreading to-day was in honour of the event, though privately kept for
the present! His little maid married without his knowledge!'

As soon as the Squire recovered consciousness he gasped: ''Tis abduction!
'Tis a capital felony! He can be hung! Where is Baxby? I am very well
now. What items have ye heard, Baxby?'

The bearer of the untoward news was extremely unwilling to agitate
Dornell further, and would say little more at first. But an hour after,
when the Squire had partially recovered and was sitting up, Baxby told as
much as he knew, the most important particular being that Betty's mother
was present at the marriage, and showed every mark of approval.
'Everything appeared to have been done so regularly that I, of course,
thought you knew all about it,' he said.

'I knew no more than the underground dead that such a step was in the
wind! A child not yet thirteen! How Sue hath outwitted me! Did Reynard
go up to Lon'on with 'em, d'ye know?'

'I can't say. All I know is that your lady and daughter were walking
along the street, with the footman behind 'em; that they entered a
jeweller's shop, where Reynard was standing; and that there, in the
presence o' the shopkeeper and your man, who was called in on purpose,
your Betty said to Reynard--so the story goes: 'pon my soul I don't vouch
for the truth of it--she said, "Will you marry me?" or, "I want to marry
you: will you have me--now or never?" she said.'

'What she said means nothing,' murmured the Squire, with wet eyes. 'Her
mother put the words into her mouth to avoid the serious consequences
that would attach to any suspicion of force. The words be not the
child's: she didn't dream of marriage--how should she, poor little maid!
Go on.'

'Well, be that as it will, they were all agreed apparently. They bought
the ring on the spot, and the marriage took place at the nearest church
within half-an-hour.'

* * * * *

A day or two later there came a letter from Mrs. Dornell to her h