le into a respectable man and wife at a moment's
notice. The trouble and expense of taking Mrs. Baggs with us, I
encountered, of course, solely out of regard for Alicia's natural
prejudices. She had led precisely that kind of life which makes
any woman but a bad one morbidly sensitive on the subject of small
proprieties. If she had been a girl with a recognized position in
society, I should have proposed to her to run away with me alone. As it
was, the very defenselessness of her situation gave her, in my opinion,
the right to expect from me even the absurdest sacrifices to the
narrowest conventionalities. Mrs. Baggs was not quite so sober in her
habits, perhaps, as matrons in general are expected to be; but, for my
particular purpose, this was only a slight blemish; it takes so little,
after all, to represent the abstract principle of propriety in the
short-sighted eye of the world.

As I reached the drawing-room door, I looked at my watch.

Nine o'clock! and nothing done yet to facilitate our escaping from
Crickgelly to the regions of civilized life the next morning. I was
pleased to hear, when I knocked at the door, that Alicia's voice sounded
firmer as she told me to come in. She was more confused than astonished
or frightened when I sat down by her on the sofa, and repeated the
principal topics of my conversion with Mrs. Baggs.

"Now, my own love," I said, in conclusion--suiting my gestures, it is
unnecessary to say, to the tenderness of my language--"there is not
the least doubt that Mrs. Baggs will end by agreeing to my proposals.
Nothing remains, therefore, but for you to give me the answer now, which
I have been waiting for ever since that last day when we met by the
riverside. I did not know then what the motive was for your silence and
distress. I know now, and I love you better after that knowledge than I
did before it."

Her head dropped into its former position on my bosom, and she murmured
a few words, but too faintly for me to hear them.

"You knew more about your father, then, than I did?" I whispered.

"Less than you have told me since," she interposed quickly, without
raising her face.

"Enough to convince you that he was breaking the laws," I suggested;
"and, to make you, as his daughter, shrink from saying 'yes' to me when
we sat together on the river bank?"

She did not answer. One of her arms, which was hanging over my shoulder,
stole round my neck, and clasped it gently.

"Since that t