“If we should elope, he would make a great hullabaloo.”
This admirable suggestion at once commended itself to me.
“His hullabaloo could not separate us, if we were married,” I replied.
“True,” said Daphne; “and after all, he and Lady Hawkshaw as good as eloped, and she was but eighteen—a year younger than I.”
Thus was I supplied with another argument.
I again swear that I had not a thought of Daphne’s fortune in all this. I would have taken the dear girl with nothing but the clothes upon her back.
True to his word, Sir Peter worked like a Trojan to get me a berth on the Bellona, and, meaning to do Giles the greatest service in the world, tried likewise for him; and mightily afraid we were that he would soon succeed.
This brought matters to a crisis with Daphne. I mentioned the word “elope” to her again, and she made a great outcry, after the manner of young women, and then began straightway to show me precisely how it might be done, protesting, meanwhile, that she would never, no, never, consent. We both agreed, though, that it was proper we should lay the matter of our marriage before Sir Peter and Lady Hawkshaw; but I saw that Daphne, who was of a romantic turn, had her imagination fired by the notion of an elopement.
“A pair of good horses and a light traveling chaise!” she exclaimed. “If only it were not wrong!”
“No, no! Four horses!” cried I, “and there is nothing wrong in either a two or a four horse chaise.”