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Rh for himself, he meant to prove faithful to the engagement.

Filled with anger and resentment at this refusal, Ernestine was all the more determined that she never would marry this man. She could still appeal to the law; but to the place where the case must be adjudged was a long and lonely journey, and it was in the depth of winter. Ernestine dared the journey, presented her petition, plead her own cause, and, to her happiness, won it, and went home to declare her triumph and freedom.

She had been detained somewhat longer than she expected to be on this journey, and on her return found that her father had solaced himself in his loneliness during her absence by taking to himself a wife, a young girl not much older than Ernestine. It may be that his own matrimonial designs had first suggested marriage as a suitable cure for the obstinacy of his daughter.

Ernestine soon found that she could not harmonize perfectly with her young step-