You had no affection for this man, and yet, in the sight of Heaven, you were going solemnly to vow that you would love and cherish him through life!" A shudder ran through the frame of Miriam, which being perceived by Mr.
Ellis, he said-- "Well may you shudder, as you stand looking down the awful abyss into which you were about plunging.

You can see no bottom, and you would have found none.

There is no condition in this life, Miriam, so intensely wretched as that of a pure-minded, true-hearted woman united to a man whom she not only cannot love, but from whom every instinct of her better nature turns with disgust.

And this would have been your condition.

Ah me! in what a fearful evil was this error of your mother, in opening a boarding-house, about involving her child! I begged her not to do so.