"I can read it! I can read it!" said Wynnette, with her weird, eldritch look and tone. "I can read it, and it is just what I believed before I heard of it! Odalite is driven somehow, by some one or something, not only to marry, but want to marry, Anglesea to save herself from some evil! Oh! I feel it even in my bones! And if she is driven quite into the marriage, I tell you there will be some awful tragedy like that of the Bride of Lammermoor! Anglesea will be found in the morning with his wizen slit--I mean with his throat cut--and Odalite will be sitting in the ashes gibbering and mopping and mowing like an idiot!" "Oh! oh! oh!" cried little Elva, covering her face with her hands and shivering through all her small frame. "See, you have frightened the child, Wynnette! You should not say such wild, extravagant things, my dear!" said Le, rebukingly. "I said it to fetch you! I mean I said it to make an impression on you!" retorted Wynnette. "Oh, Le! can't you be Young Lochinvar and carry her off from the wedding?" pleaded little Elva. "Hardly, my darling! "'The fair Ellen of Young Lochinvar' was willing to be carried off, and Odalite is not, which makes all the difference, you know!" "Oh, but she would be glad afterward!" persisted Elva. "Oh, hush, Elf! He won't try it! The age of chivalry is past!" indignantly replied Wynnette. "We will walk on," said Le. And they resumed their tramp toward Greenbushes, where they arrived in about another hour, and where they spent the day, returning home in the evening. "Oh, Le! Sweet, dear, darling Le! won't you please carry off Odalite, just like Young Lochinvar did fair Ellen? Oh, please, Le! It would be so easy! You could have George saddled and brought round to the front door. George is the fastest and the strongest horse in the stables, and you could snatch her up and run out with her and be in the saddle and away before folks could get over their surprise. And she would be glad afterward! I know she would! Weren't the Sabine women glad afterward that the Roman youth had carried them away?" argued Elva, fresh from her school history. "And, Le, you could do it very easily!" "Yes, I could, very easily," grimly assented the youth. "And you will, won't you?" "No, my precious! It would not do! Not in these days, darling! With all the examples of romance, poetry and history to inspire me, I must not do it! If I were to attempt such a feat, I would be a felon, not a hero, my pet." "Then I wish you were a felon!" was the astounding conclusion of Elva, as she passed him by and entered the house.