"Oh, my beloved one," it ran, the handwriting being, he noticed, beautifully clear and legible, as indeed all young ladies' handwriting was in those days, "I am here at last in London, ready to be your bride. Yet ever have I trembled night and day with fear and apprehension lest aught should arise to prevent our arrival. My guardians would not at first decide to let me set out for London, because the season was almost past; and also because I have been ailing. Ay! in very truth almost have I been dead, owing to a terrible scene which arose betwixt me and one other, the man whom you attacked so nobly, as I have since heard, in the avenue; for, my beloved, that man desired my hand, you must know--he was unlike you, my unselfish hero! and was a fortune-hunter, and his reproaches were terrible when he learnt that we had met. But now he is gone to his horrid ship; now I can be wholly yours. Oh! my dear one, how I desire that you might come here to our town house so that I could see you, embrace you; but, alas! none must ever know till it is done. Meanwhile, Mrs. Pottle and I will sally forth, and we will meet to arrange all. Bid me but to come, and I will fly to you. Confide in her; she will be true. Now, no more, from your ever fond and trusting--A. T." And "A. T." had sallied forth, as she had said, under the charge of the astute Mrs. Pottle; the lovers had met, and planned all; now, to-morrow, Beau Bufton would clasp his beloved one, his heiress, in his arms. "Tell us," said Granger this evening, as he--clad in a brand-new suit, a new wig, and clean fresh lace--sat at the Beau's table, "us all. Let us know what is to be. My friends," he said, addressing two or three dissolute-looking young men, all fashionably dressed, who also sat, or rather lolled, at the repast, "we have a task, the task of duty, of friendship, to perform to-morrow early. Tell us, or rather tell them, since I know very well, what is to be done." "Well, brave boys," exclaimed the Beau, beaming on them, as who would not beam who upon the morrow was to marry a hundred thousand guineas, "this is the plan: We wed to-morrow at Keith's Chapel, in May Fair, at eleven. I would that it had been earlier, but Keith's clerk says his reverence's deputy--Keith being now in Newgate--is never to be depended on before that hour, he not having slept off the effects of--well! of overnight." "Keith's Chapel!" exclaimed one of the guests, who himself appeared as though he would not have slept off the effects of the present night much before the hour that had been mentioned. "Why, I protest, 'twas there James, Duke of Hamilton, married Miss Gunning a few years ago. You will be in the fashion, Beau." "Ay! 'tis so," exclaimed Granger. "We are nothing if not fashionable." "Yet," said an older, graver man than the first speaker, "are you very sure that thus you will be by law united? Has not a Marriage Act passed forbidding such things?"