There they lay, the children of predilection, the
riches of the East expended that they might sleep
soft, and wake in magnificence. I, the eldest brother---
the heir---I stood beside their bed in the
borrowed dress which I had so lately exchanged
for the rags of an hospital. Their couches breathed
the richest perfumes, while I was reeking from a
pest-house; and I---I repeat it---the heir, the produce
of their earliest and best love, was thus treated.
No wonder that my look was that of a basilisk.''
``You speak as if you were possessed with an
evil spirit,'' said Hartley; ``or else you labour
under a strange delusion.''
``You think those only are legally married over
whom a drowsy parson has read the ceremony
from a dog's-eared prayer-book? It may be so in
your English law---but Scotland makes Love himself
the priest. A vow betwixt a fond couple, the
blue heaven alone witnessing, will protect a confiding
girl against the perjury of a fickle swain, as
much as if a Dean had performed the rites in the
loftiest cathedral in England. Nay, more; if the
child of love be acknowledged by the father at the
time when he is baptized---if he present the mother
to strangers of respectability as his wife, the laws
of Scotland will not allow him to retract the justice
which has, in these actions, been done to the female
whom he has wronged, or the offspring of their
mutual love.
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