The Holy Scriptures are now the foundation
studies of our country, and her ark is safe.--1845.]
"Ah!" cried the thus self-deluded Lady Sara, one night, as she
traversed her chamber in a paroxysm of tears; "what are the vows I
have sworn? How can I keep them? I have sworn to love, to honor
Captain Ross; but in spite of myself, without any action of my own, I
have broken both these oaths. I cannot love him; I hate him; and I
cannot honor the man I hate. What have I else to break? Nothing. Ny
nuptial vow is as completely annihilated as if I had left him never
to return. How?" cried she, after a pause of some minutes, "how shall
I know what passes in the mind of Constantine? Did he love me, would
he protect me, I would brave the whole universe. Oh, I should be the
happiest of the happy!"
Fatal conclusion of reflection! It infected her dreaming and her
waking fancy. She regarded everything as an enemy that opposed her
passion; and as the first of these enemies, she detested Lady
Tinemouth. The countess's last admonishing letter enraged her by its
arguments; and, throwing it into the fire with execrations and tears,
she determined to pursue her own will, but to affect being influenced
by her ladyship's counsels.
The Count Sobieski, who surmised not the hundredth part of the
infatuation of Lady Sara, began to hope that her ardent manner had
misled him, or that she had seen the danger of such imprudence.
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