Quaint Courtships | Page 3

two young persons were plunged in grief. Oh,
glorious grief of thwarted love! When they met now, they did not talk
of the landscape. Their conversation, though no doubt as genteel as
before, was all of broken hearts. But again Letty's mother found out,
and went in wrath to call on Alfred's family. It was decided between
them that the young man should be sent away from home. "To save
him," says the father. "To protect my daughter," says Mrs. Morris.
But Alfred and Letty had something to say.... It was in December; there
was a snow-storm--a storm which Lydia Wright would certainly have
called "awful"; but it did not interfere with true love; these two children
met in the graveyard to swear undying constancy. Alfred's lantern came
twinkling through the flakes, as he threaded his way across the hillside
among the tombstones, and found Letty just inside the entrance,
standing with her black serving-woman under a tulip-tree. The negress,
chattering with cold and fright, kept plucking at the girl's pelisse; but
once Alfred was at her side, Letty was indifferent to storm and ghosts.
As for Alfred, he was too cast down to think of them.
"Letty, they will part us."
"No, my dear Alfred, no!"
"Yes. Yes, they will. Oh, if you were only mine!"
Miss Letty sighed.
"Will you be true to me, Letty? I am to go on a sailing-vessel to China,
to be gone two years. Will you wait for me?"
Letty gave a little cry; two years! Her black woman twitched her
sleeve.
"Miss Let, it's gittin' cole, honey."
"(Don't, Flora.)--Alfred, _two years!_ Oh, Alfred, that is an eternity.
Why, I should be--I should be twenty!"
The lantern, set on a tombstone beside them, blinked in a snowy gust.
Alfred covered his face with his hands, he was shaken to his soul; the

little, gay creature beside him thrilled at a sound from behind those
hands.
"Alfred,"--she said, faintly; then she hid her face against his arm; "my
dear Alfred, I will, if you desire it--fly with you!"
Alfred, with a gasp, lifted his head and stared at her. His slower mind
had seen nothing but separation and despair; but the moment the word
was said he was aflame. What! Would she? Could she? Adorable
creature!
"Miss Let, my feet done get cole--"
("Flora, be still!)--Yes, Alfred, yes. I am thine."
The boy caught her in his arms. "But I am to be sent away on Monday!
My angel, could you--fly, _to-morrow_?"
And Letty, her face still hidden against his shoulder, nodded.
Then, while the shivering Flora stamped, and beat her arms, and the
lantern flared and sizzled, Alfred made their plans, which were simple
to the point of childishness. "My own!" he said, when it was all
arranged; then he held the lantern up and looked into her face, blushing
and determined, with snowflakes gleaming on the curls that pushed out
from under her big hood. "You will meet me at the minister's?" he said,
passionately. "You will not fail me?"
"I will not fail you!" she said; and laughed joyously; but the young
man's face was white.
She kept her word; and with the assistance of Flora, romantic again
when her feet were warm, all went as they planned. Clothes were
packed, savings-banks opened, and a chaise abstracted from the Price
stable.
"It is my intention," said the youth, "to return to my father the value of
the vehicle and nag, as soon as I can secure a position which will
enable me to support my Lefty in comfort and fashion."
On the night of the elopement the two children met at the minister's
house. (Yes, the very old Rectory to which we Old Chester children
went every Saturday afternoon to Dr. Lavendar's Collect class. But of
course there was no Dr. Lavendar there in those days.)
Well; Alfred requested this minister to pronounce them man and wife;
but he coughed and poked the fire. "I am of age," Alfred insisted; "I am
twenty-two." Then Mr. Smith said he must go and put on his bands and
surplice first; and Alfred said, "If you please, sir." And off went Mr.

Smith--_and sent a note to Alfred's father and Letty's mother!_
We girls used to wonder what the lovers talked about while they waited
for the traitor. Ellen Dale always said they were foolish to wait. "Why
didn't they go right off?" said Ellen. "If I were going to elope, I
shouldn't bother to get married. But, oh, think of how they felt when in
walked those cruel parents!"
The story was that they were torn weeping from each other's arms; that
Letty was sent to bed for two days on bread and water; that Alfred was
packed off to Philadelphia the very next morning,