“This is the twentieth century, Barton,” said mamma, laughing; “young women do not elope nowadays. They may defy parents and divorce husbands, but they don’t elope.”
“Don’t they?” snorted uncle Barton. “I say they do! When I was at Nassau this winter, a young Englishman, without two cents to jingle on a tombstone, eloped with old Stanbury Steel’s daughter. They borrowed his friend Lord Battleford’s steam yacht—you must remember about Battleford—started round the world a poor lieutenant on some English man-of-war, and came back to find half a dozen relations dead, and a title and fortune waiting for him. Well, as I was saying, they got him to lend them his yacht, touched at Miami to get married, and were off before old Steel could catch ’em. Mark my words, Julia, girls are not to be trusted.”
This last remark switched them back to the starting point, and they finally agreed to let me go.
The swallow that does not make summer came to us disguised as one warm day, and mamma dispatched me on my mission, although before I could pack and get off the weather had turned chilly, with a wind from the east.
I was allowed a bodyguard of two servants—the most incompetent in the house, and therefore the most easily spared: old Murphy, a preserved supernumerary, who, having been my father’s valet, was kept on through sentiment, and Bridget, the housemaid, also elderly and very irritable.
We reached our little, airy, seaside home at sundown—only there wasn’t any sun—and found the fires, lighted by the women who had been cleaning, most agreeable after a chilly drive from the station. The wind was howling and rattling through the cracks of the window frames, and actually made its way between the boards of the floor. There was nothing to oppose its fury; it could sweep up uninterruptedly from the Antilles or across from Europe, and that night it seemed to come from both directions at once, and make whirling eddies on our south piazza.
Murphy served me a nice little repast on a tray, so that I did not have to leave the library fire, and I amused myself with my novel till half-past nine, and then rang the bell.
“I am going to bed, Murphy,” I said. “You may lock up.”
“Me and Bridget’s going ourselves, ma’am,” he answered.
“See that all the shutters are securely fastened,” I added. “The cleaners left some of them open, but they should be closed such a night as this.”