“It is done!” I cried, with all the enthusiasm that I could muster at the moment. “It is done—it is most cheerfully agreed. I sacrifice every feeling for your sake. Tonight I wear this dear eyeglass, as an eyeglass, and upon my heart; but with the earliest dawn of that morning which gives me the pleasure of calling you wife, I will place it upon my—upon my nose—and there wear it ever afterward, in the less romantic, and less fashionable, but certainly in the more serviceable, form which you desire.”
Our conversation now turned upon the details of our arrangements for the morrow. Talbot, I learned from my betrothed, had just arrived in town. I was to see him at once, and procure a carriage. The soirée would scarcely break up before two; and by this hour the vehicle was to be at the door; when, in the confusion occasioned by the departure of the company, Madame L. could easily enter it unobserved. We were then to call at the house of a clergyman who would be in waiting; there be married, drop Talbot, and proceed on a short tour to the East;