Praise was something she could not bear.

She was inured to censure.
"Do you remember that dark night--of course you do--when you braved everything and came here to see August, who would have died but for your coming ?" Andrew was now looking at Julia, who answered him almost inaudibly.
"And do you remember when we got to your gate, on your return, what you said to me ?" "Yes, sir," said Julia.
"To be sure you do, and" (turning to August) "I shall never forget her words; she said, If he should get worse, I should like him to die my husband, if he wishes it.

Send for me, day or night, and I will come in spite of everything." "Did you say that ?" asked August, looking at her eagerly.
And Julia nodded her head, and lifted her eyes, glistening with brimming tears, to his.
"You do not know," said Andrew to the preacher, "how much her proposal meant, for you do not know through what she would have had to pass.

But I say that God does sometimes reward virtue in this world--a world not quite worn out yet--and she is worthy of the reward in store for her." Saying this, Andrew went into the closet leading to his secret stairway--secret no longer, since Julia had ascended by that way--and soon came down from his library with a paper in his hand.
"When you, my noble-hearted niece, proposed to make any sacrifice to marry this studious, honest, true-hearted German gentleman, who is worthy of you, if any man can be, I thought best to be ready for any emergency, and so I went the next day and procured the license, the clerk promising to keep my secret.

A marriage-license is good for thirty days.