"Well, so do I," I said. "And I should hate to give away a lot of presents to people who had never done me any harm."
"Dear old boy!" she said affectionately. "Mother rather hates the idea of it too. But she feels, perhaps, that we ought to think of our rich friends at a time like this."
"Miriam," I said boldly, "we can't face it. Let us go away together and get married quietly when we get to England."
The idea seemed to strike her as something rather dreadful and rather pleasing at the same time. She blushed, but her eyes were bright.
"Oh, we couldn't," she said.
"Yes, we could. Let us go away in a week's time, before all the fuss begins, and escape it."
"It really would be rather fun!" She was half joking, half in earnest, but, at any rate, she had admitted the idea into her mind, and gradually as I pressed her, making light of all difficulties, she began to waver towards acquiescence, in earnest. What her mother would think was the chief obstacle.
"I am sure she would be just as relieved as we should at escaping all the bother," I said. "You could leave her a letter."
"I could come back and see her after we were married."