‘Yes! yes! yes!’ she exclaimed eagerly, ‘you are my life--my all. I cannot live without you, or away from you. It is only a sudden fear of the consequences of this step we are taking which terrified me. It is gone now, dear Frederick, indeed it has. What fear could I have in becoming your wife. You, whom I love beyond all other things. Only, my poor parents, my poor, good mother, Fred. How I wish she had said, “God bless you, Jenny,” as we parted. She has been such a kind mother to me, and she will miss me so. She will have nothing to occupy her thoughts, or her hands, poor mother, now I am gone. Do you think I shall ever see them again, Fred?--my parents, and poor old Aunt Clem. Do you think my father will keep them from me _all_ my life?’ She spoke so rapidly and excitedly, and she clung to him so tightly, that Frederick Walcheren feared she was what the lower orders call ‘going off her head,’ and said all he could think of to soothe her. ‘No! no! my darling girl, what can you be thinking of, to ask me such a silly question? Of course, your father will come round in time. The old gentleman is too fond and proud of you himself to hold out very long. It is _I_ on whom he will pour out the vials of his wrath. Come, let me dry those tears. We are almost at the registrar’s office now, and he will think I am inveigling you into a marriage against your will if he sees you crying. Perhaps he will take it for a case of abduction, and order me to be locked up, until he has found out where you come from, and if I have carried you off by force. And then there will be the old gentleman to pay, and no pitch hot.’ Jenny laughed at the expression and let Frederick kiss away her tears, and in another half hour, they walked out of the registrar’s office together man and wife. CHAPTER V.