There were, as respects this belief, certainly a few
sceptics, but then they enjoyed their doubts in private, with that
species of sublimated and solitary gratification that a miser finds in
gazing at his growing, but useless, hoards.
In order to give the worthy priest something to employ his mind,
Middleton made him the instrument of uniting Paul and Ellen. The
former consented to the ceremony, because he found that all his
friends laid great stress on the matter; but shortly after he led his
bride into the plains of Kentucky, under the pretence of paying
certain customary visits to sundry members of the family of Hover.
While there, he took occasion to have the marriage properly
solemnised, by a justice of the peace of his acquaintance, in whose
ability to forge the nuptial chain he had much more faith than in that
of all the gownsmen within the pale of Rome. Ellen, who appeared
conscious that some extraordinary preventives might prove necessary to
keep one of so erratic a temper as her partner, within the proper
matrimonial boundaries, raised no objections to these double knots,
and all parties were content.
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