“As she has informed you?”

“Yes.  But, like a sensible girl, she prefers consulting her own taste in matters of the heart.”

“A very sensible girl, certainly!”

“Isn’t she!  Well, as delays are dangerous, I have made up my mind to consummate this business as quickly as possible.  You know how hard pressed I am in certain quarters, and how necessary it is that I should get my pecuniary matters in a more stable position.  In a word, then, my business, on the present occasion, is to remove Caroline from school, it being my opinion that she has completed her education.”

“Has she consented to this?”

“No; but she won’t require any great persuasion.  I’ll manage all that.  What I want you to do is, first, to engage me rooms at Howard’s, and, second, to meet me at the boat, day after to-morrow, with a carriage.”

“Where will you have the ceremony performed?”

“In this city.  I have already engaged the Rev. Mr. B——­ to do that little work for me.  He will join us at the hotel immediately on our arrival, and in your presence, as a witness, the knot will be tied.”

“All very nicely arranged,” said Williams.

“Isn’t it!  And what is more, the whole thing will go off like clock work.  Of course I can depend on you.  You will meet us at the boat.”

“I will, certainly.”

“Then good by.”  They were by this time at the landing.  The two young men shook hands, and Lawson sprung on board of the boat, while Williams returned thoughtfully to his office.

Charles Lawson was a young man having neither principle nor character.  A connection with certain families in New York, added to a good address, polished manners, and an unblushing assurance, had given him access to society at certain points, and of this facility he had taken every advantage.  Too idle and dissolute for useful effort in society, he looked with a cold, calculating baseness to marriage as the means whereby he was to gain the position at which he aspired.  Possessing no attractive virtues—­no personal merits of any kind, his prospects of a connection, such as he wished to form, through the medium of any honorable advances, were hopeless, and this he perfectly well understood.  But, the conviction did not in the least abate the ardor of his purpose.  And, in a mean and dastardly spirit, he approached one young school girl after another, until he found in Caroline Everett one weak enough to be flattered by his attentions.  The father of Caroline, who was a man of some discrimination and force of mind, understood his daughter’s character, and knowing the danger to which she was exposed, kept upon her a watchful eye.  Caroline’s meetings with Lawson were not continued long before he became aware of the fact, and he at once removed her to a school at a distance from the city.  It would have been wiser had he taken her home altogether.  Lawson could have desired no better arrangement, so far as his wishes were concerned.