n health, in poverty and wealth," broke in Mrs. Baggs,
determining to represent the clergyman as well as to be the witness.

"Alicia, dear," I said, interrupting in my turn, "repeat my words. Say
'I take this man, Francis Softly, for my lawful wedded husband.'"

She repeated the sentence, with her face very pale, with her dear hand
cold and trembling in mine.

"For better for worse," continued the indomitable Mrs. Baggs. "Little
enough of the Better, I'm afraid, and Lord knows how much of the Worse."

I stopped her again with the promised five-pound note, and opened the
room door. "Now, ma'am," I said, "go to your room; take off your bonnet,
and put your hair as tidy as you please."

Mrs. Baggs raised her eyes and hands to heaven, exclaimed "Disgraceful!"
and flounced out of the room in a passion. Such was my Scotch
marriage--as lawful a ceremony, remember, as the finest family wedding
at the largest parish church in all England.

An hour passed; and I had not yet summoned the cruel courage to
communicate my real situation to Alicia. The entry of the shock-headed
servant-girl to lay the cloth, followed by Mrs. Baggs, who was never out
of the way where eating and drinking appeared in prospect, helped me to
rouse myself. I resolved to go out for a few minutes to reconnoiter, and
make myself acquainted with any facilities for flight or hiding which
the situation of the house might present. No doubt the Bow Street runner
was lurking somewhere; but he must, as a matter of course, have
heard, or informed himself, of the orders I had given relating to our
conveyance on to Edinburgh; and, in that case, I was still no more in
danger of his avowing himself and capturing me, than I had been at any
previous period of our journey.

"I am going out for a moment, love, to see about the chaise," I said
to Alicia. She suddenly looked up at me with an anxious searching
expression. Was my face betraying anything of my real purpose? I hurried
to the door before she could ask me a single question.

The front of the inn stood nearly in the middle of the principal street
of the town. No chance of giving any one the slip in that direction; and
no sign, either, of the Bow Street runner. I sauntered round, with the
most unconcerned manner I could assume, to the back of the house, by the
inn yard. A door in one part of it stood half-open. Inside was a bit of
kitchen-garden, bounded by a paling; beyond that some backs of detached
houses; b