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father's minister, your own spiritual father, and I am sure he never taught any such nonsense about marriage. He taught that the marriage is in the mutual love, and that where the love is, there is valid marriage in the sight of heaven, and that it is merely for the purpose of maintaining some little order and regularity in society that the formal ceremony of marriage is at all necessary. Those who are united by love God has married, and whom God has joined together let no one put asunder."

"I respect your father, Mr. Morton, as my father's friend, and for the many amiable qualities and generous dispositions he possessed. But I have learned, God be praised, to abjure his doctrines. It is not mine to judge him. He has gone to give an account for what he taught, and I leave him in the hands of his God, who will do him justice tempered with infinite mercy. But the blasting effects of his doctrine you may read in your own unprofitable life. From the very bottom of your heart you despise the life you lead, and all who can be the dupes of your sophistry. To what baseness are not you, who call yourself a gentleman, prepared to descend? and at what a terrible expense are you not willing to purchase your own selfish gratification? What can you say in your defence?"

"Nothing."

"And yet you will continue your course, and continue to do that which you cannot justify in your own eyes, and in defence of which you have not one word to offer."

"Very likely."

"And you ask me to love you, to give myself up to you, to be yours, to love, serve, and obey you until death "

Yes. Where will you find one more worthy of you ? I am not, perhaps, just what I should be, and yet I do not feel particularly humbled when I compare myself with others. Few men, I apprehend, can be found who are my superiors; and I do not think the proudest of your sex would stoop very much if they should stoop so low as to accept the offer I have made you." "You rate yourself very highly, Mr. Morton. I would much rather be the wife of the meanest laborer in the streets, in case the grace of God has renewed his heart, than to be the wife of such a man as you.'

"You said you had forgiven me. It is not true. You think you have me in your power, and you are now taking your revenge. You imagine you triumph over me. Well, triumph away; I cannot blame you.'

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No, I seek no revenge, no triumph. I tell you plainly why I cannot accept your proposal. I will be the wife of no

man, who I have not good reason to believe is a true believer in Jesus Christ, and who loves his God even more than he will love me, so much that he would not even for my sake do aught against the divine law, -and certainly I can never be the wife of one who never knew any love but love of himself."

"Well, if I were a good Christian in your sense, could you, would you, then consent to be mine?"

"It will be time enough for you to put that question, and for me to answer it, when you have become a good Christian. Till then let it rest. If you should seek to become a Christian for the sake of obtaining me for your wife, you could not become one. There are other reasons enough why you should seek to become a Christian. You have your own soul to save, and you will find it much harder for you to spend eternity without God, than this short life without me. But," said she, rising, and speaking with great dignity and solemnity, "go now, and make your peace with God. We meet no more. Without Christ there is no good for you; with him you can desire no other good. Farewell, and may God in mercy touch your heart, and make you his child."

So saying, she left the room. In a few moments the old man reëntered. "Well, Edward, your proposal was listened to, was it not ?"

"Yes, with a vengeance."

"Accepted?"

"Why do you mock me. You had trained her before I saw her, and she has but followed your instructions. But no matter. She shall be mine yet. By heavens! I will not be thwarted by an old dotard and a silly young girl of nineteen. I give you fair warning. She shall be mine. Her pride shall be humbled, and yours too. Remember what I say. Nothing but death shall snatch from me my prize."

"You are young, and have not learned the vanity of big words. You are imprudent, too, for so wise a man. You should not threaten, you should keep your purpose to yourself. However, it must be as God wills. The girl, I think, is safe under his protection."

CHAPTER VI.

THE old man was right, and I felt humbled under a sense of my imprudence; but I could not consent to abandon my resolution. I would suffer no woman to thwart my desires, or to triumph over me and live. Moreover, I became more attached 16

VOL. II. NO. I.

to Katharine than ever. True, her views of marriage were not such as I could entertain for myself, but they were precisely such as every man wishes his wife to entertain and act upon. Most men, too, however little they care for religion and piety themselves, are well pleased to have their wives religious and pious. Katharine's recent conversion, though it had carried her, as I could easily gather from the tone of her remarks, into a church with which I had no sympathy, and which I looked upon as long since dead and buried, rather enhanced her in my estimation, and made me still more desirous of possessing her, of calling her mine, and binding her to me for life.

Nevertheless, I was no stranger to the arts of the sex. I did not believe her rejection was positive. She felt that I was at her feet, and there she intended to keep me till she had enjoyed her triumph. No woman can forego the opportunity of exercising her power, and of sporting with her victim. But I was too old to become a dupe, and too much the master of myself to become the slave of another. In the present case, the triumph should be on the other side. "Kate shall be mine," said I, as I returned to my room. "She is a splendid creature, and, with her, I half believe I could be as good as Parson Middleton himself, or, which is somewhat more, as good as his creed requires him to be. For her I think I could leave off my follies, and be faithful, considerate, and kind. She has mind, too, and knows what she says. She is none of your weak, puny creatures, that dissolve in your arms, and leave you nothing but the memory of having embraced an unsubstantial vision. She has sentiment, that I know; but she knows how to control it, and let it appear only as it is wanted. She is just the woman a man like me, satiated and wearied with the world, and the whole herd around him, needs for his wife. 'Heaven's best gift is the last.' She shall be mine.

"But that old dragon is no duenna. There is no tampering with him, and he has as many eyes as Argus, and is as omni

seen.

present as the Devil. He keeps strict watch, and there is no eluding him. If I believed in spirits, whether good or bad, I should half believe him more than mortal. He has certainly Fortunatus's cap, and has the power of seeing without being Then he seems to be able to read more than can be seen. He knows one's thoughts, most secret thoughts, and I much doubt whether he is not now taking note of what is passing in my mind and heart. Never mind, old man. You are bent on thwarting me, but I know a spell which will prove too mighty for you. Your ward loves, and loves me too. I need

but sit quiet and she will seek me of her own accord. She is pious, too, and will think it a sad thing that my soul should be lost. She believes I love her, and that she can have power over me which may be exerted for my spiritual good. It would be so glorious a thing to pluck me as a brand from the burning. She must try. Love, disguising itself under the form of Christian charity, will make her anxious to meet me, anxious to converse with me, and – the rest is easy enough." All this was consoling, and relieved my mortified vanity not a little. Nevertheless, I had a secret misgiving. I did not really fear that my free notions and practice would be in my way, for your pious women are rarely afraid of the dissolute, and in general rather prefer the rake, probably out of charity, in hopes of being the instrument of reforming him. But there was something so calm, so frank, so sweet, and withal so firm, in Katharine's manner, that I feared that her heart was far from being desolate. It had found an object, whether a human or a superhuman, was more than I could say; but evidently her heart was satisfied, and she had no longer the craving to love or to be loved. It can't be so, and yet it must. If so, my chances are small; if not so, I can hardly account for her perfect quiet and serenity. There are those who speak of the doubts and anxieties of love, who tell us what they call the pains of love are worth all other pleasures. It is true, we cling to these pains, we cherish them, we are afraid to let them go, afraid to find ourselves free from them, and it must be admitted that they give a piquant variety to the dull monotony of the voluptuary's life; but pain is pain, and I have never yet found pain pleasant, nor preferable to pleasure. Thus we hold on to these pains with a death-grasp, not because we would retain them, but because we dread that if we lose them we shall find something worse, and because we hope they will soon end in pleasure. But alas! vain is the voluptuary's hope. He never is, but is always just a-going, to be blessed. He perpetually renews the old myth of Tantalus. He is parched with thirst; the bubbling fountain sparkles before his eyes; it rises almost to his lips; he stoops to drink; it recedes, and keeps ever beyond his reach. He is famished. Trees grow around him; their branches loaded with delicious fruit, bending down, invite him to reach forth his hand, to take and eat. extends his hand, a breeze wafts the branch aside, or it rises

He

just enough to keep him from grasping it. Yet there it hangs, and ever does he reach forth his hand, sure this time he shall succeed; but ever as before does it elude his grasp. But my

business is not to moralize, but to relate my story. I found myself in a very unpleasant position, and, in spite of my good opinion of myself, of my general good fortune,-in spite of my philosophy which taught me to take all things easy, and never to go out of my way even for pleasure, I became a prey to contending emotions, and was crucified by my fears, doubts, and anxieties. Katharine had got into my head, and would not be expelled; she was fast winding her arms round my heart, and her embrace would not be relaxed. The only good I could see for me in life was to call this girl mine, and by a holy rite since I could-and would, now by no other. I felt she was necessary to me; but was I necessary to her?

I spent considerable time in brooding over the matter, and in contriving plans for bringing it to a successful issue. The more I dwelt on it, the more I fancied I loved; and the more I persuaded myself I loved, the more I feared I might not be able to make my threat good. No plan I could devise seemed feasible; one was adopted, and then another, each to be in turn rejected. Till at length it occurred to me, what I had forgotten, that Katharine was still my ward, and at any rate I might drive to the old-fashioned house, and call upon her. She could hardly refuse to see me, and if she did, it was but a refusal, and would be a refusal from which I could gather hope; for it would prove that she had not ceased to regard me, and therefore feared to see me. I lost no time, called, was admitted without any delay, and found Katharine alone. favors the brave," said I. "Every thing as I could wish."

"Fortune

Katharine received me civilly, but coolly, invited me to be seated, and pursued her occupation. I was rarely at a loss, but at this moment I felt as awkward as the student just from the university, and almost wished for hat or cane to play with. But I rallied instantly. "Katharine," said I, "I was very much displeased with the termination of our last interview." "Why so, Mr. Morton."

"Because we are old friends, or rather, I am an old friend. We have always been much together from your childhood, and I am not willing to hear those rascally words, We meet no more.' They are sometimes, I own, pleasant words enough, but intolerable from beautiful lips, and especially from lips we love and have often kissed. One could more easily hear one's sentence to be hung."

"But you have made them words of no meaning. Had they affected you so seriously, you would hardly have come to hear them repeated."

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