“Come, Harry, excuse my bad temper. I ought to have known you better—give me your hand, old boy, and wish me joy, for with you aiding and abetting she is mine to-morrow morning.”
I wrung his hand heartily—congratulating myself, meanwhile, how happily I had got out of my scrape; as I now, for the first time, perceived that Curzon was bona fide in earnest.
“So, you will stand by me, Hal,” said he.
“Of course. Only show me how, and I’m perfectly at your service. Any thing from riding postillion on the leaders to officiating as brides-maid, and I am your man. And if you are in want of such a functionary, I shall stand in ‘loco parentis’ to the lady, and give her away with as much ‘onction’ and tenderness as tho’ I had as many marriageable daughters as king Priam himself. It is with me in marriage as in duelling—I’ll be any thing rather than a principal; and I have long since disapproved of either method as a means of ‘obtaining satisfaction.’”
“Ah, Harry, I shall not be discouraged by your sneers. You’ve been rather unlucky, I’m aware; but now to return: Your office, on this occasion, is an exceedingly simple one, and yet that which I could only confide to one as much my friend as yourself. You must carry my dearest Louisa off.”
“Carry her off! Where?—when?—how?”
“All that I have already arranged, as you shall hear.”
“Yes. But first of all please to explain why, if going to run away with the lady, you don’t accompany her yourself.”
“Ah! I knew you would say that, I could have laid a wager you’d ask that question, for it is just that very explanation will show all the native delicacy and feminine propriety of my darling Loo; and first, I must tell you, that old Sir Alfred Jonson, her father, has some confounded prejudice against the army, and never would consent to her marriage with a red-coat—so that, his consent being out of the question, our only resource is an elopement. Louisa consents to this, but only upon one condition—and this she insists upon so firmly—I had almost said obstinately—that, notwithstanding all my arguments and representations, and even entreaties against it, she remains inflexible; so that I have at length yielded, and she is to have her own way.”
“Well, and what is the condition she lays such stress upon?”