My horror was, however, soon dissipated. My cousin Pattie had made the engagement only in self-defence, and she looked upon the whole affair as the best joke in the world. "How we will cheat him," said she; "the base fellow!" and she danced about, smiling, and laughing, and crying together, so that it was a delight to see her. "Yes," said she, with uncommon vivacity, "we will cheat him, for I'm sure he deserves no better; for I'm sure he's just as much of a goose and fortune-hunter as he said _you_ were; and I'm sure I despise a goose and fortune-hunter above all things; and I'm sure I know how to treat a goose and fortune-hunter as well as anybody. How we'll laugh at him to-morrow! How he'll stare when he finds I'm gone! how papa will stare too! How Sammy will stare, and how he'll whistle! Oh dear! I _do_ love to cheat people of all things; I do, cousin Ikey; and, ods fishes, I'm almost half minded to cheat you too!" And with that she flung her arms round my neck, gave me a kiss, and ran laughing away to prepare for the hour of elopement. There was an extraordinary coincidence between the situation of my cousin Pattie and myself. She had agreed to run away with two different people at the same moment; and so had I. The day before my uncle proved unusually crusty and self-willed, and I began to think I should never effect my point with him; and, what was equally dispiriting, I fell among duns, who persecuted me with astonishing rancour; my uncle's appearance, as it seemed, serving rather to sharpen than to allay their appetites for payment. Being thus goaded on by doubt and dunning, I resolved to make sure of Goldfist's daughter; which I did by visiting her as soon as night came, and proposing an elopement on the following evening; and this it was the more easy to put into execution, since her father, as she told me, was fast in bed with a sciatica, or some such vulgar disorder. No one could be more willing and delighted than the fair Alicia; and it appeared that, in anticipation of the happy event, she had already made all her preparations, having, as she assured me, arranged with a friend of hers, at whose house she designed the ceremony to be performed, ordered secretly a whole trunk full of bride's clothes, and notified an old schoolmate whom she had engaged to wait upon her.