Jone thought I had done a good deal of meddling in other people’s business, but he agreed to go to Gretna Green, and we got there in the afternoon.  I left Jone to take a smoke at the station, because I thought this was a business it would be better for me to attend to myself, and I started off to look up the village blacksmith and ask him if he had lately wedded a pair; but, will you believe it, madam, I had not gone far on the main road of the village when, a little ahead of me, I saw two bath-chairs coming toward me, one of them pulled by Robertson, and the other by Pomeroy’s man, and in these two chairs was the happy lovers, evidently Mr. and Mrs.!  Their faces was filled with light enough to take a photograph, and I could almost see their hearts swelling with transcendent joy.  I hastened toward them, and in an instant our hands was clasped as if we had been old friends.

They told me their tale.  They had reached the station in plenty of time, and Robertson had got a carriage for them, and he and the other man had gone with them third class, with the bath-chairs in the goods carriages.  They had reached Gretna Green that morning, and had been married two hours.  Then I told my tale.  The eyes of both of them was dimmed with tears, hers the most, and again they clasped my hands.  “Poor father,” said Angelica, “I hope he didn’t go all the way to the Cat and Fiddle, and that the night air didn’t strike into his joints; but he cannot separate us now.”  And she looked confiding at the other bath-chair.

“What are you going to do?” said I, and they said they had just been making plans.  I saw, though, that their minds was in too exalted a state to do this properly for themselves, and so I reflected a minute.  “How long have you been in Buxton?”

“I have been there two weeks and two days,” said she, “and my husband”—­oh, the effulgence that filled her countenance as she said this—­“has been there one day longer.”

“Then,” said I, “my advice to you is to go back to Buxton and stay there five days, until you both have taken the waters and the baths for the full three weeks.  It won’t be much to bear the old gentleman’s upbraiding for five days, and then, blessed with health and love, you can depart.  No matter what you do afterward, I’d stick it out at Buxton for five days.”

“We’ll do it,” said they; and then, after more gratitude and congratulations, we parted.

And now I must tell you about ourselves.  When Jone had been three weeks at Buxton, and done all the things he ought to do, and hadn’t done anything he oughtn’t to do, he hadn’t any more rheumatism in him than a squirrel that jumps from bough to bough.  But will you believe it, madam, I had such a rheumatism in one side and one arm that it made me give little squeaks when I did up my back hair, and it all came from my taking the baths when there wasn’t anything the matter with me; for I found out, but all too late, that while the waters of Buxton will cure rheumatism