Page:The Cottagers of Glenburnie - Hamilton (1808).djvu/351

 her hand affectionately, "you are still my child. Your father's house will be ever open to you. But remember the vows that are upon you. You have bound yourself by ties, that are indissoluble as they are sacred, and though your husband were the lowest, nay even the worst of mankind, your fate is bound in his."

"But her husband is neither the one nor the other," said Mrs Mason. "He is, as I have told you, the son of an honest tradesman, who lives in a small village in Yorkshire, and—"

"And—and—the—the estate in Dorsetshire, how did he come by it?" sobbed Mrs Mollins.

"He came by it," said Mrs Mason, "as people who forsake the direct path of truth come by all they boast of, telling one falsehood to support another; a species of lying, which, as it goes under the appellation of quizzing, or humming, is often mistaken for wit."