The solemnity was to be performed in the village church, which stood
in the park of Deerhurst, and the Rev. Dr. Blackmore, who came over
from his own private dwelling in Worcestershire, accompanied by his
pupil, Lord Avon, vas to perform the holy rite. No adjunct of the
Roman Catholic ceremony (then the national church of Poland) was
needful fully to legalize it. Thaddeus from his infancy had been
reared in the Protestant faith, the faith of his mother, whose own
mother was a daughter of the staunch Hussite race of the princely
Zamoiski, who still professed that ancient, simple creed of their
country. It was also the national faith of him who had given
Therese's son being; therefore, to the same pure doctrine of
Christianity had she dedicated his deserted child; and should they
ever meet again, she believed it must be before the throne of Divine
Mercy; and there she trusted to present their solitary offspring with
the sacred words--"Here I am, Lord, and the child thou didst give
me."
But to return to the marriage-day itself. The hour having arrived in
which the soul-devoted Mary Beaufort was to resign herself and her
earthly happiness into the power of the only man to whom, having once
beheld and known him, she could ever have committed them, she
pronounced her vows at the sacred altar with unsteadiness of tongue
but with a fixed heart.
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