s to-morrow week." Mr. Jay accepted the invitation, and
added, jocosely, that he was going home at once to get off his clean
clothes, and to be comfortable and dirty again for the rest of the day.
I have to report that I saw him home safely, and that he is comfortable
and dirty again (to use his own disgraceful language) at the present
moment.

Here the affair rests, having by this time reached what I may call its
first stage.

I know very well what persons of hasty judgment will be inclined to say
of my proceedings thus far. They will assert that I have been deceiving
myself all through in the most absurd way; they will declare that the
suspicious conversations which I have reported referred solely to the
difficulties and dangers of successfully carrying out a runaway match;
and they will appeal to the scene in the church as offering undeniable
proof of the correctness of their assertions. So let it be. I dispute
nothing up to this point. But I ask a question, out of the depths of my
own sagacity as a man of the world, which the bitterest of my enemies
will not, I think, find it particularly easy to answer.

Granted the fact of the marriage, what proof does it afford me of the
innocence of the three persons concerned in that clandestine
transaction? It gives me none. On the contrary, it strengthens my
suspicions against Mr. Jay and his confederates, because it suggests a
distinct motive for their stealing the money. A gentleman who is going
to spend his honeymoon at Richmond wants money; and a gentleman who is
in debt to all his tradespeople wants money. Is this an unjustifiable
imputation of bad motives? In the name of outraged Morality, I deny it.
These men have combined together, and have stolen a woman. Why should
they not combine together and steal a cash-box? I take my stand on the
logic of rigid Virtue, and I defy all the sophistry of Vice to move me
an inch out of my position.

Speaking of virtue, I may add that I have put this view of the case to
Mr. and Mrs. Yatman. That accomplished and charming woman found it
difficult at first to follow the close chain of my reasoning. I am free
to confess that she shook her head, and shed tears, and joined her
husband in premature lamentation over the loss of the two hundred
pounds. But a little careful explanation on my part, and a little
attentive listening on hers, ultimately changed her opinion. She now
agrees with me that there is nothing in this unexpected circu