"What be 'e thinkin' on?" asked Thomas, pressing the arm which reposed on his own. "I guess you be thinkin' there won't be all this fuss when we marries," etc., etc., etc. Here the amorous swain rushed off into a maze of love's intricacies, little interesting to the reader, or indeed to Sally, who took the earliest opportunity of finding the silken cord, and getting out of it, leaving the cautious Thomas watching, in the twilight, her buxom figure as she sped homewards. Red and excited she entered the farm kitchen, and, flying up the stairs, tapped at a door, and then bounced in. Tremenhere sat there, and not less than her own, was his agitation, when she unloaded her budget; he thanked his faithful messenger for her vigilance, and after a consultation with the homely farmer, who was summoned to the room, this latter started off for Harrogate, to discover if really the chaise had been ordered, as reported. With some little manoeuvring he found out, beyond a doubt, that it was a fact. What he then did--what they had mutually decided upon--will be shortly seen. To have carried off Minnie at that late hour would have been impracticable--How succeed? this was their first thought, but no posters could be obtained as relays; there would be no train to assist them so advanced in the night, for he could not see Minnie to convey the intelligence until nearly midnight. To fly, and be overtaken, were worse than all. Poor Miles paced his room in an agony of mind nothing can paint; until that supreme moment he did not know how dear Minnie was, all his energy seemed for a while crushed; he clenched his hands, and the thick, knotted veins swelled in his forehead, as the heaving breast sent the boiling blood to his brain. He cursed his own folly, his scruples for waiting so long, now all these had disappeared; present fears, future reflections on imprudence, all were cast aside: he only saw Minnie separated from himself, in Marmaduke's and her uncle's power, with Dalby to back them in villainy. He cared for nothing which might be said, he forgot all his mother's wrongs, from perhaps a want of strict prudence, (of error he never dreamed,) which had so long upheld him in a resolution to only win _his_ wife before all the world, and by all its most rigid laws of prudence and right. He sat down at last, with his watch clutched in his hand, counting the weary moments till he could visit Gatestone. A cold sweat hung on his brow, as he thought some unforeseen event, impossible to conquer, might mar all, and thus he sat, in the bitter agony of a lone heart, which, though it may find kind, sympathizing friends, finds not one to comprehend all its suffering--not one to speak as it would. As the weary hours crept by, he was worn almost to woman's weakness; for at a moment when he needed all to support himself in calmness, Farmer Weld, or perhaps Sally, would enter his room, or the farmer's good dame, and by their well-meant, but