Read it through once

We have now arrived at the end. But it is not exciting. McClintock thinks it is; but it isn’t. One day Elfonzo sends Ambulinia another note—a note proposing elopement No. 16. This time the plan is admirable; admirable, sagacious, ingenious, imaginative, deep—oh, everything, and perfectly easy. One wonders why it was never thought of before. This is the scheme. Ambulinia is to leave the breakfast table, ostensibly to ‘attend to the placing of those flowers, which ought to have been done a week ago’—artificial ones, of course; the others wouldn’t keep so long—and then, instead of fixing the flowers, she is to walk out to the grove, and go off with Elfonzo. The invention of this plan overstrained the author, that is plain, for he straightway shows failing powers. The details of the plan are not many or elaborate. The author shall state them himself—this good soul, whose intentions are always better than his English: