"
The clergyman took his clasped Bible from his pocket, and read the
following words: "If a woman vow a vow unto the Lord, and bind herself
by a bond, being in her father's house in her youth, and her father hear
her vow, and her bond wherewith she hath bound her soul, and her father
shall hold his peace at her; then all her vows shall stand, and every
vow wherewith she hath bound her soul shall stand."
"And was it not even so with us?" interrrupted Ravenswood.
"Control thy impatience, young man," answered the divine, "and hear what
follows in the sacred text: 'But if her father disallow her in the day
that he heareth, not any of her vows, or of her bonds wherewith she hath
bound her soul, shall stand; and the Lord shall forgive her, because her
father disallowed her."
"And was not," said Lady Ashton, fiercely and triumphantly breaking
in--"was not ours the case stated in the Holy Writ? Will this person
deny, that the instant her parents heard of the vow, or bond, by which
our daughter had bound her soul, we disallowed the same in the most
express terms, and informed him by writing of our determination?"
"And is this all?" said Ravenswood, looking at Lucy.
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