“So, you will stand by me, Hal,” said he.

“Of course.  Only show me how, and I’m perfectly at your service.  Any thing from riding postillion on the leaders to officiating as brides-maid, and I am your man.  And if you are in want of such a functionary, I shall stand in ‘loco parentis’ to the lady, and give her away with as 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?”