face, blushing
and determined, with snowflakes gleaming on the curls that pushed out
from under her big hood. "You will meet me at the minister's?" he said,
passionately. "You will not fail me?"

"I will not fail you!" she said; and laughed joyously; but the young
man's face was white.

She kept her word; and with the assistance of Flora, romantic again when
her feet were warm, all went as they planned. Clothes were packed,
savings-banks opened, and a chaise abstracted from the Price stable.

"It is my intention," said the youth, "to return to my father the value
of the vehicle and nag, as soon as I can secure a position which will
enable me to support my Letty in comfort and fashion."

On the night of the elopement the two children met at the minister's
house. (Yes, the very old Rectory to which we Old Chester children went
every Saturday afternoon to Dr. Lavendar's Collect class. But of course
there was no Dr. Lavendar there in those days).

Well; Alfred requested this minister to pronounce them man and wife; but
he coughed and poked the fire. "I am of age," Alfred insisted; "I am
twenty-two." Then Mr. Smith said he must first go and put on his bands
and surplice; and Alfred said, "If you please, sir." And off went Mr.
Smith--_and sent a note to Alfred's father and Letty's mother_!

We girls used to wonder what the lovers talked about while they waited
for the return of the surpliced traitor. Ellen Dale always said they
were foolish to wait. "Why didn't they go right off?" said Ellen. "If
_I_ were going to elope, I shouldn't bother to get married. But, oh,
think of how they felt when in walked those cruel parents!"

The story was that they were torn weeping from each other's arms; that
Letty was sent to bed for two days on bread and water; that Alfred was
packed off to Philadelphia the very next morning, and sailed in less
than a week. They did not see each other again.

But the end of the story was not romantic at all. Letty, although she
crept about for a while in deep disgrace, and brooded upon death--that
interesting impossibility, so dear to youth--_married_, if you please!
when she was twenty, somebody called North,--and went away to live. When
Alfred came back, seven years later, he got married, too. He married a
Miss Barkley. He used to go away on long voyages, so perhaps he wasn't
really fond of her. We tried to think so, for we liked Captain Price.

In our day Captain Price was a widower. He had gi