“If Tim had been in raptures before, he was now fairly mad with his success. Up to the last moment, he had been tormented with a fear lest something should occur by which this rich prize should slip through his fingers; but now his charmer was actually beside him, and they were being whirled over the ground at a rate which would soon defy pursuit. ‘Was ever fellow in such good luck?’ thought Tim. Thousands of acres, an only daughter, and she as clean in her run as a Baltimore clipper. How he cursed the presence of the maid, which prevented him from being as tender as he thought the occasion demanded. However, he could take his charmer’s hand, without shocking her modesty, and he went through pretty quick, all the variations of which squeezing is liable. He would have stolen his arm around the bride’s waist, but the envious cloak prevented this. Tim could scarcely endure the probation. On they rattled, all this while, with the tempest roaring at their heels, and, as the night without grew stormier, the agitation of the bride increased, she almost sobbed, and clung closer and closer every minute to Tim. It made his heart, as he said, ‘leap into his mouth intirely,’ to feel her arms around his neck in the extremity of her fright. “‘Whist, darlin,’ he said, ‘don’t be alarmed—it’s only a little bit of a storm, to keep our bloody pursuers from hearing us. Before mornin we’ll be in York, and then the praist will make you my own. Speak, and tell me, ye’re not frightened? Shure, and ain’t I by your side, mavourneen?’ “The answer of the bride was delivered in such a low and tremulous voice, and interrupted by so many sobbings, that Tim, though he listened his best, couldn’t for the life of him make out more than a word here and there. However, he thought he distinguished enough to fill him with more rapture than ever, and, forgetting all about the maid, he drew his bride still closer to his bosom, and, nestling her head on his shoulder, poured forth his vows in torrents of eloquence. The Lord only knows what he said—Irishmen are proverbial for hyperbole. “‘And is it that I wont love ye intirely, my princess?’ said Tim, by way of a grand wind up. ‘Shure, and I’ll worship ye as the heathens do the sun, and so will my five brothers, and the tenantry on my estate—though it’s more than I know,’ muttered Tim to himself, ‘where to find them—and won’t I be proud to shew ye off to my friends as the handsomest and sweetest woman in the rigiment? There, now, be aisy, my jewel—your father won’t catch us. Oh! isn’t it iligantly I’ve outwitted him, and that owld hag of an aunt, your namesake?’ “‘Old hag of an aunt,’ screamed the bride, starting back from Tim’s shoulder as if an adder had stung her, ‘why—who—do you take _me_ for?’ “‘For Miss Araminta Wheeler, and divil a one else—shure, and I have not offended ye, my darlin, by that same thrifle of a remark?’ and he drew his bride again toward him.