'Speak for yourself!' she snapped through her sobs. 'I am only one-
and-forty! . . . Why didn't ye ride faster and overtake 'em!'

In the meantime the young married lovers, caring no more about their
blood than about ditch-water, were intensely happy--happy, that is,
in the descending scale which, as we all know, Heaven in its wisdom
has ordained for such rash cases; that is to say, the first week
they were in the seventh heaven, the second in the sixth, the third
week temperate, the fourth reflective, and so on; a lover's heart
after possession being comparable to the earth in its geologic
stages, as described to us sometimes by our worthy President; first
a hot coal, then a warm one, then a cooling cinder, then chilly--the
simile shall be pursued no further. The long and the short of it
was that one day a letter, sealed with their daughter's own little
seal, came into Sir John and Lady Grebe's hands; and, on opening it,
they found it to contain an appeal from the young couple to Sir John
to forgive them for what they had done, and they would fall on their
naked knees and be most dutiful children for evermore.

Then Sir John and his lady sat down again by the fireplace with the
four-centred arch, and consulted, and re-read the letter. Sir John
Grebe, if the truth must be told, loved his daughter's happiness far
more, poor man, than he loved his name and lineage; he recalled to
his mind all her little ways, gave vent to a sigh; and, by this time
acclimatized to the idea of the marriage, said that what was done
could not be undone, and that he supposed they must not be too harsh
with her. Perhaps Barbara and her husband were in actual need; and
how could they let their only child starve?

A slight consolation had come to them in an unexpected manner. They