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At Last by Marion Harland
page 5 of 307 (01%)
felicity of those she had aided to couple in the leash matrimonial,
and more uncharitable toward malicious meddlers or thoughtless
triflers with the course of true love; more implacable to
match-breakers than to the most atrocious phases of schism, heresy,
and sedition in church or state, against which she had, from her
childhood, been taught to pray. The remotest allusion to a divorce
case threw her into a cold perspiration, and apologies for such
legal severance of the hallowed bond were commented upon as rank and
noxious blasphemy, to which no Christian or virtuous woman should
lend her ear for an instant. If she had ever entertained "opinions"
hinting at the allegorical nature of the Mosaic account of the Fall,
her theory would unquestionably have been that Satan's insidious
whisper to the First Mother prated of the beauties of feminine
individuality, and enlarged upon the feasibility of an elopement
from Adam and a separate maintenance upon the knowledge-giving,
forbidden fruit. Upon second marriages--supposing the otherwise
indissoluble tie to have been cut by Death--she was a trifle less
severe, but it was generally understood that she had grave doubts as
to their propriety--unless in exceptional cases.

"When there is a family of motherless children, and the father is
himself young, it seems hard to require him to live alone for the
rest of his life," she would allow candidly. "Not that I pretend to
say that a connection formed through prudential motives is a real
marriage in the sight of Heaven. Only that there is no human law
against it. And the odds are as eight to ten that an efficient hired
housekeeper would render his home more comfortable, and his children
happier than would a stepmother. As for a woman marrying twice"--her
gentle tone and eyes growing sternly decisive--"it is difficult for
one to tolerate the idea. That is, if she really loved her first
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