"I shut myself up in my bedroom; locked the door; read, and again read my father's letter; and, instead of giving way to idle passion, (beware of that, Harry, even in the most desperate circumstances,) I considered, with keen investigation, whether some remedy could not yet be found.--To break off the match for the time, would have been easy--a little private information to Mr. Mowbray would have done that with a vengeance--But then the treaty might be renewed under my father's auspices;--at all events, the share which I had taken in the intrigue between Clara and my brother, rendered it almost impossible for me to become a suitor in my own person.--Amid these perplexities, it suddenly occurred to my adventurous heart and contriving brain--what if I should personate the bridegroom?--This strange thought, you will recollect, occurred to a very youthful brain--it was banished--it returned--returned again and again--was viewed under every different shape--became familiar--was adopted.--It was easy to fix the appointment with Clara and the clergyman for I managed the whole correspondence--the resemblance between Francis and me in stature and in proportion--the disguise which we were to assume--the darkness of the church--the hurry of the moment--might, I trusted, prevent Clara from recognising me. To the minister I had only to say, that though I had hitherto talked of a friend, I myself was the happy man. My first name was Francis as well as his; and I had found Clara so gentle, so confiding, so flatteringly cordial in her intercourse with me, that, once within my power, and prevented from receding by shame, and a thousand contradictory feelings, I had, with the vanity of an _amoureux de seize ans_, the confidence to believe I could reconcile the fair lady to the exchange. "There certainly never came such a thought into a madcap's brain; and, what is more extraordinary--but that you already know--it was so far successful, that the marriage ceremony was performed between us in the presence of a servant of mine, Clara's accommodating companion, and the priest.--We got into the carriage, and were a mile from the church, when my unlucky or lucky brother stopped the chaise by force--through what means he had obtained knowledge of my little trick, I never have been able to learn. Solmes has been faithful to me in too many instances, that I should suspect him in this important crisis. I jumped out of the carriage, pitched fraternity to the devil, and, betwixt desperation and something very like shame, began to cut away with a couteau de chasse, which I had provided in case of necessity.--All was in vain--I was hustled down under the wheel of the carriage, and, the horses taking fright, it went over my body.