"What I fear for Amabel then is, that Lady Throckmorton—I mean Lady Leighton—will try to marry her up to some of the men who are always hanging about her—to Lord Bulmer, for instance. Do you think, madam, that in that case Amabel would be bound to obey?"
The old lady meditated for a moment before she spoke.
"No, bairn, I would not say so. If my nephew forbids his daughter to marry this minister—what is his name?"
"Mr. Cheriton."
"Aye, Mr. Cheriton. If my nevoy forbids his daughter to marry this man, though there be naught against him, doubtless his daughter is bound to obey her father, at least till she is of age. Children are to obey their parents in the Lord. But no parent has the right to make his child perjure herself by promising to love and honor a man whom she hates and despises, or to promise to love one man while her heart is another's. That such matches have sometimes turned out well to appearance is but saying that sin is sometimes overruled for good. Nay, I am as earnest as any one for obedience to parents, but if a father bids his child to bow down before an idol, she is not bound to obey."
We both started as Amabel came forward to the fire and spoke, for we had not heard her enter.
"I think you are quite right, aunt," said she. "If my father requires me to give up Mr. Cheriton I will do so, at least till I am of age, but nothing shall ever make me marry any one else, while he lives—nothing!"
She spoke without excitement, but with the calm resolute air I knew so well.
"You are right, niece!" said Leddy Thornyhaugh. "So long as you hold that resolution, nobody can make you marry. But if you should ever, either of you, be driven to straits and need a friend, come to me at Thornyhaugh and you shall find one, if I am alive."
The good lady went away next day much regretted by us all. Elsie would fain have returned with her foster-sister, for such she was, but after some private conversation, she decided to remain.