' I took down his instructions, and the necessary deeds were
drawn in accordance with them. When the day for signing arrived, the
bridegroom-elect demurred at first to the stringency of the provisions
of the marriage-contract; but as upon this point Mr Dutton was found
to be inflexible, the handsome, illiterate clown--he was little
better--gave up his scruples, the more readily as a life of assured
idleness lay before him, from the virtual control he was sure to have
over his wife's income. These were the thoughts which passed across
his mind, I was quite sure, as taking the pen awkwardly in his hand,
he affixed _his mark_ to the marriage-deed. I reddened with shame, and
the smothered groan which at the moment smote faintly on my ear, again
brokenly confessed the miserable folly of the father in not having
placed his beautiful child beyond all possibility of mental contact or
communion with such a person. The marriage was shortly afterwards
solemnised, but I did not wait to witness the ceremony.
The husband's promised good-behaviour did not long endure; ere two
months of wedded life were past, he had fallen again into his old
habits; and the wife, bitterly repentant of her folly, was fain to
confess, that nothing but dread of her father's vengeance saved her
from positive ill usage. It was altogether a wretched, unfortunate
affair; and the intelligence--sad in itself--which reached me about a
twelvemonth after the marriage, that the young mother had died in
childbirth of her first-born, a girl, appeared to me rather a matter
of rejoicing than of sorrow or regret.
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