“Oh, no you won’t, my dear! You will love me too well. You’ll love me as well as the Sabine girls loved the Roman youths who carried them off against their wills, just as I am carrying you!” laughed Albert.
“I’ll see you hanged first!” fired Elfie.
“Of course you will, my dear!—around your neck! Come, come, Elfie! Stop trying to tear my ears out by the roots, for I don’t think you’ll succeed. And do be reasonable! You don’t know what a gay life we are going to lead here in the green wood. Your most romantic dreams will be realized. You’ll think that you have slipped out of the nineteenth century and slid down into the twelfth. You’ll fancy yourself in Epping forest, living with Robin Hood and his merry men—except that we don’t wear Lincoln green, Elfie; but Confederate gray. Come! shall I be your Robin Hood? And will you be my maid Marion?”
“I’ll be your death!” blazed Elfie.
“Oh, no you won’t, my dear. You’ll do as I said before.”
“What are you going to do with me, you demon?”
“Marry you, my angel!”
“Marry me!” cried Elfie, nearly choking with rage.
“Yes, my dear. We have a ‘Friar Tuck’ in our band, who will gladly solemnize the nuptial rites and dispense with the formality of a license or a wedding ring.”
“And do you think—do you think, you matchless villain!” cried Elfie, again seizing his ears with her nails and wringing them with all her strength, “do you really think that I will consent to such an outrage?”