years old," Launce proceeded. "She must go
straight back to her father's house from the church, and I must wait
to run away with her till her next birthday. When she's turned sixteen,
she's ripe for elopement--not an hour before. There is the law of
Abduction! Despotism in a free country--that's what I call it!"

Natalie sat down again, with an air of relief.

"It's a very comforting law, I think," she said. "It doesn't force one
to take the dreadful step of running away from home all at once. It
gives one time to consider, and plan, and make up one's mind. I can tell
you this, Launce, if I am to be persuaded into marrying you, the law of
Abduction is the only thing that will induce me to do it. You ought to
thank the law, instead of abusing it."

Launce listened--without conviction.

"It's a pleasant prospect," he said, "to part at the church door, and to
treat my own wife on the footing of a young lady who is engaged to marry
another gentleman."

"Is it any pleasanter for _me_," retorted Natalie, "to have Richard
Turlington courting me, when I am all the time your wife? I shall never
be able to do it. I wish I was dead!"

"Come! come!" interposed Lady Winwood. "It's time to be serious.
Natalie's birthday, Mr. Linzie, is next Christmas-day. She will be
sixteen--"

"At seven in the morning," said Launce; "I got that out of Sir Joseph.
At one minute past seven, Greenwich mean time, we may be off together. I
got _that_ out of the lawyer."

"And it isn't an eternity to wait from now till Christmas-day. You get
that, by way of completing the list of your acquisitions, out of
_me_. In the mean time, can you, or can you not, manage to meet the
difficulties in the way of the marriage?"

"I have settled everything," Launce answered, confidently. "There is not
a single difficulty left."

He turned to Natalie, listening to him in amazement, and explained
himself. It had struck him that he might appeal--with his purse in
his hand, of course--to the interest felt in his affairs by the late
stewardess of the yacht. That excellent woman had volunteered to do all
that she could to help him. Her husband had obtained situations for his
wife and himself on board another yacht--and they were both eager
to assist in any conspiracy in which their late merciless master was
destined to play the part of victim. When on shore, they lived in
a populous London parish, far away from the fashionable district of
Berkeley Square, and fur