Ferguson waiting at the locked door, was a thing never to
be spoken of, but also never to be forgotten during the longest and
happiest lifetime. It was a warning that made her--even her--to the end
of her days, say to every young woman she knew, "Beware! Marry _for
love_, or never marry at all."
When she descended, every ray of color had gone out of her face--it
was white and passionless as stone; but she kissed the children all
around, gave a little present to Isabella, who had been her only
bridesmaid, shook hands and said a word or two of thanks to honest
James Ferguson, her "father" for the day, and then found herself driving
through the familiar streets--not alone. She never would be alone any
more.
With a shudder, a sense of dread indescribable, she remembered this.
All her innocent, solitary, dreamy days quite over, her happiness.
vanished; her regrets become a crime. The responsibility of being no
longer her own, but another's--bound fixedly and irrevocably by the
most solemn vow that can be given or taken, subject to no limitations.
provisions, or exception while life remained. Oh. it was awful--awful!
She could have shrieked and leaped out of the carriage, to run wildly
anywhere--to the world's end--when she felt her hand taken, softly but
firmly.
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