Thorndyke; "rooms are
engaged at the W---- House, Boston, and a clerical friend of mine is to
perform the ceremony very much on the quiet. You don't object to being
married in a hotel parlor, and by a Congregationalist minister, do you?
By-and-by we'll take a run over the border and have the thing done over
again in the sacred precincts of Notre Dame de Montreal, if you like.
Just at present everything must be _sub rosa_, my darling. The old
boy--I mean my respected uncle Darcy--will cut up deuced rough, you
know, when he first comes to hear it. He expects me to marry his pet,
Nellie Holmes; so does Miss Nellie, if the truth must be told. So I
would have done, too, if fate and a broken limb had not thrown me upon
_your_ protection. And from that hour, my darling, my fate was sealed.
Of all the eyes, blue, black, brown, green, or gray, for killing,
wholesale slaughter, commend me to those of a fair Canadian. So you see,
Norry, we will be married Wednesday morning nicely on the quiet, and
we'll go to a place I've engaged, over Chelsea way, down by the 'sad sea
waves,' to spend the honeymoon. And there for one blessed month we'll
forget all the uncles and aunts, all the lawyers and heiresses in
Christendom, and 'do' love among the roses. You forgive me for carrying
you off in this right knightly fashion--you do, don't you, Norry? Ah! I
know you do; but look up, my own love, and tell me so, and so make my
happiness complete."

With a little fluttering sigh Norine obeyed, clinging close to her
hero's side in the darkness.

"But you'll let me write home when we are married, and tell them,
Laurence, won't you? They have been so good to me, always--always, and
they will think, oh yes, they will think such dreadful things of me
now."

"They will forget and forgive, never fear, Norry. People always come
round when they can't do anything else. Of course you shall write to
them--of course you shall do for the future precisely as you wish, and I
will only exist to fulfil your commands. But not just yet, you know; not
until uncle Darcy relents and forgives. Because, my pet, I haven't a
dollar in the world of my own, except my allowance from him, and I can't
afford to offend him. But I'll soon bring him round. Let him see you
once, and all will be forgiven. The man doesn't exist, old or young, who
could resist _you_."

All this was very delightful, of course; and in such rose-colored,
romance-flavored talk, the time sped on. Nor