If she had been a girl with a recognized position in society, I should have proposed to her to run away with me alone.

As it was, the very defenselessness of her situation gave her, in my opinion, the right to expect from me even the absurdest sacrifices to the narrowest conventionalities.

Mrs.Baggs was not quite so sober in her habits, perhaps, as matrons in general are expected to be; but, for my particular purpose, this was only a slight blemish; it takes so little, after all, to represent the abstract principle of propriety in the short-sighted eye of the world.
As I reached the drawing-room door, I looked at my watch.
Nine o'clock! and nothing done yet to facilitate our escaping from Crickgelly to the regions of civilized life the next morning.

I was pleased to hear, when I knocked at the door, that Alicia's voice sounded firmer as she told me to come in.

She was more confused than astonished or frightened when I sat down by her on the sofa, and repeated the principal topics of my conversion with Mrs.Baggs.
"Now, my own love," I said, in conclusion--suiting my gestures, it is unnecessary to say, to the tenderness of my language--"there is not the least doubt that Mrs.Baggs will end by agreeing to my proposals.
Nothing remains, therefore, but for you to give me the answer now, which I have been waiting for ever since that last day when we met by the riverside.