ting creature, who under all these
names, and in spite of all these variations in his humour, loved him
very truly, and has no doubt whatever of being his wife."

"You!--it would be safer to marry an incarnate demon!"

"Ah, safer perhaps; but not so respectable! Come, do sit down; what's
the use of ceremony among friends and neighbours? Has your father
consented to the match?"

"Do you think I asked him?"

"Why not? you don't like Gretna Green better, do you?"

"By no means--my intentions are changed."

"But you forget that I am neither Betsy Juffles nor Miss Poggs; I am
nothing but Lucy Ashton."

"I wish you had never been any thing else," I said, beginning to soften;
for who could resist such a voice and such eyes?

"Well, I tell you I am _not_ changed--will that not satisfy you? Imagine
that all that has passed since we parted here is a dream; that Verbena
Lodge has no existence, and that Mr Dobble is an ass! Won't you sit down
beside me, Edgar?"

I threw myself upon the turf, and she went on.

"I grant I have been a little capricious, Edgar, but there were reasons
for it, believe me."

"What reason could there be for all these mysteries?"

"Why, in the first place, it was very amusing; in the next place, you
did not know your own mind; in the next place, it was romantic; in the
next place, I wanted to try you if your love was really sincere."

"And you found it wanting," I said in a tone of self-reproach.

"Not a bit," she replied, with a look that showed she knew my heart a
great deal better than I did myself.

"At this moment I believe your affection for me rises triumphant above
the horrors of Betsy Juffles or Miss Poggs; and so I think I shall
reward you at last with an open explanation of who I am."

"No, dearest Lucy Ashton!" I said, taking her hand, "not before I swear
that it is yourself only I care for--that I love you more than words can
tell."

"Then you'll marry the gal of course," said a voice; and at the same
moment the head of old Mr Jeeks was popped round from the other side of
the tree. I sprang to my feet in a moment; and beside Mr Jeeks, scarcely
able to restrain his laughter, stood my father.

"Matters have certainly gone too far," he said in his usual grave and
sombre tones, "for either party to recede."

"Nobody wants it, I'm sure," replied old Jeeks.

"And I have no wish of the kind," returned my father.

"Then, if the young ones are agreed, I don't see what there is