tell you." It was joyful news to Sarah, and how readily she had
acquiesced in my plan for an elopement was manifest in the fact that
she was then by my side.

We bad not been in the woods an hour when, as I anticipated, we
heard our pursuers, we did not know how many there were, drive
rapidly by. "Now we can go on, I suppose," said Sarah. "Oh no, my
dear," I replied, "now is just the time to wait quietly here;" and
wait we did till 'eight o'clock, when our pursuers, having gone on a
few miles, and having seen or learned nothing of the fugitives, came
by again "on the back track." They must have thought we had turned
off into some other road. I waited a while longer to let our
friend's get a little nearer home and further away from us, and then
took the road again toward Water Gap.

We reached Water Gap at midnight, had some supper and fed the horse.
We rested awhile, and then drove leisurely on nine miles further,
where we waited till daylight and crossed the river. We were in no
great hurry now; we were comparatively safe from pursuit. We soon
came to a public, house, where we stopped and put out the horse,
intending to take breakfast. While I was inquiring of the landlord
if there was a justice of the peace in the neighbor- hood, the
landlord's wife had elicited from Sarah the fact of our elopement,
who she was, who her folks were, and so on. The well-meaning
landlady advised Sarah to go back home and get her parents consent
before she married. Sarah suggested that the very impossibility of
getting such consent was the reason for her running away; nor did it
appear how she was to go back home alone even if she desired to. We
saw that we could get no help there, so I countermanded my order for
breakfast, offering at the same time to pay for it as if we had