At the first opportunity, the guests walked leisurely out, and young Lochinvar seized an imaginary chance to draw Ellen hastily back into the supper room. He whispered the magic word into her ear, she started in horror and drew back; he urged; she demurred; he pleaded; she showed signs of surrender; he begged on his bended knees; she yielded at length to the plan of the elopement, with all its delightful risks. Then Lochinvar darted to the outside door and brought in his charger,--rather an unique proceeding, perhaps, but necessary under the circumstances, inasmuch as the audience could not be transported to the proper scene of the mounting. As the flight was to be made on horseback, much ingenuity and labor were needed to arrange it artistically. The horse's head was the work of Geoff's hand, and for meekness of expression, jadedness, utterly-cast-down-and-worn-out-ness, it stood absolutely unrivalled. A pair of trucks were secreted beneath the horse-blankets, and the front legs of the animal pranced gaily out in front, taking that startling and decided curve only seen in pictures of mowing-machines and horseraces. Lochinvar quieted his fiery beast, and swung Ellen into the saddle, leaped up after her, waved his tall hat in triumph, and started off at a snail's pace, the horse being dragged by a rope from behind the scenes. When half way across the stage, Ellen clasped her lover's arm and seemed to have forgotten something. Everybody in the room at once guessed it must be some part of her trousseau. She explained earnestly in pantomime; Lochinvar refused to return; she insisted; he remained firm; she pouted and seemingly said that she wouldn't elope at all unless she could have her own way. He relented, they went back to Netherby Hall, and Ellen ran up a secret stairway and came down laden with maidenly traps. Greatly to the merriment of the observers, she loaded them on the docile horse in the very face of Lochinvar's displeasure--two small looking-glasses, a bird-cage, and a French bonnet. She then leisurely drew on a pair of huge India rubbers, unfurled a yellow linen umbrella, and just as her lover's patience was ebbing, suffered herself to be remounted. The second trip across the stage was accomplished in safety, though with anything but the fleetness common to elopements either in life or in poetry.