“I will do whatever you bid me,” whispered Persis. Then Darius kissed her hand, and she stole softly through the dark doorway into the gloom of the house, while her faith in her lover was as a lamp to all her thoughts. On the next afternoon there was a sensation in this little seaport town. A grand coach and four, with a black man driving, a fine gentleman’s head at one window, and a fine lady’s at another, came dashing through the place at two o’clock. The women all ran to the doors and windows. Lounging old men straightened themselves languidly to stare, and turned their vacant faces over their shoulders. A multitude of small lads, with here and there a little petticoat among them, collected rapidly, and pelted along in the wake of this grand equipage. They followed it quite through the town to the road that led through the woods, past the graveyard, to the Buckley house, then up the road, panting but eager, the smaller children dragging at the hands of their elder brothers. When they reached the Buckley house, this small rabble separated itself into decorously silent, primly courtesying rows on either side of the way. Then the grand coach and four at length turned about, and moved between the courtesying rows of children, while Ichabod Buckley stood proudly erect in his best green surtout watching it, and poor Submit, with a scrubbing-cloth in her hand, peeped around the house corner, and the Buckley Lady rode away. And all the people saw the coach and four dash at a rattling pace back through the town, with the Buckley Lady’s face set like a white lily in a window, and her grand suitor’s fair head opposite. They also saw another lady beside Persis; her face was well hidden in her great velvet hood and wrought veil, but she sat up with a stately air. The children followed the coach on the Boston road as far as they were able, then they straggled homeward, and the coach went out of sight in a great billow of dust. It was several days before the people knew what had really happened--that Persis Buckley had gone away with Darius Hopkins, with a fair wig over his black hair, and the fine lady in the velvet hood had been nobody but Mistress Tabitha.