Charles Dickens

“ On a nearer approach, and by a practised eye, these might have been identified as the forms of the Pirate-Colonel with his Bride, and of the day before yesterday's gallant prisoner with his Bride.
On the beauteous faces of the Nymphs, dejection sat enthroned. All four reclined under the willow for some minutes without speaking, till at length the bride of the Colonel poutingly observed, "It's of no use pretending any more, and we had better give it up."
"Hah!" exclaimed the Pirate. "Pretending?"
"Don't go on like that; you worry me," returned his Bride. ”

“ The Colonel, still much dissatisfied, growled, "How about waiting?"
"We will wait," answered little Alice, taking Nettie's hand in hers, and looking up to the sky, "we will wait—ever constant and true—till the times have got so changed as that everything helps us out, and nothing makes us ridiculous, and the fairies have come back. We will wait—ever constant and true—till we are eighty, ninety, or one hundred. And then the fairies will send us children, and we will help them [27] out, poor pretty little creatures, if they pretend ever so much." ”

“ I am ever thine," returned his Bride.
"Then do you no longer love me, Nettie?" asked the present writer.
"Tinkling! I am ever thine," returned my Bride.
We all four embraced. Let me not be misunderstood by the giddy. The Colonel embraced his own Bride, and I embraced mine. But two times two make four.
"Nettie and I," said Alice, mournfully, "have been considering our position. The grown-up people are too strong for us. They make us ridiculous. Besides, they have changed the times. William Tinkling's baby-brother was christened yesterday. ”