much 'onction' and tenderness as tho' I had as many
marriageable daughters as king Priam himself. It is with me in marriage
as in duelling--I'll be any thing rather than a principal; and I have
long since disapproved of either method as a means of 'obtaining
satisfaction.'"

"Ah, Harry, I shall not be discouraged by your sneers. You've been
rather unlucky, I'm aware; but now to return: Your office, on this
occasion, is an exceedingly simple one, and yet that which I could only
confide to one as much my friend as yourself. You must carry my dearest
Louisa off."

"Carry her off! Where?--when?--how?"

"All that I have already arranged, as you shall hear."

"Yes. But first of all please to explain why, if going to run away with
the lady, you don't accompany her yourself."

"Ah! I knew you would say that, I could have laid a wager you'd ask that
question, for it is just that very explanation will show all the native
delicacy and feminine propriety of my darling Loo; and first, I must tell
you, that old Sir Alfred Jonson, her father, has some confounded
prejudice against the army, and never would consent to her marriage with
a red-coat--so that, his consent being out of the question, our only
resource is an elopement. Louisa consents to this, but only upon one
condition--and this she insists upon so firmly--I had almost said
obstinately--that, notwithstanding all my arguments and representations,
and even entreaties against it, she remains inflexible; so that I have at
length yielded, and she is to have her own way."

"Well, and what is the condition she lays such stress upon?"

"Simply this--that we are never to travel a mile together until I obtain
my right to do so, by making her my wife. She has got some trumpery
notions in her head that any slight transgression over the bounds of
delicacy made by women before marriage is ever after remembered by the
husband to their disadvantage, and she is, therefore, resolved not to
sacrifice her principle even at such a crisis as the present."

"All very proper, I have no doubt; but still, pray explain what I
confess appears somewhat strange to me at present. How does so very
delicately-minded a person reconcile herself to travelling with a perfect
stranger under such circumstances?"

"That I can explain perfectly to you. You must know that when my darling
Loo consented to take this step, which I induced her to do with the
greatest difficulty, she made the proviso