trifled with, Lady Stair was obliged to consent to an interview
between Lord Rutherford and her daughter. But she took care to be
present in person, and argued the point with the disappointed and
incensed lover with pertinacity equal to his own. She particularly
insisted on the Levitical law, which declares that a woman shall be
free of a vow which her parents dissent from. This is the passage of
Scripture she founded on:

"If a man vow a vow unto the Lord, or swear an oath to bind his soul
with a bond; he shall not break his word, he shall do according to all
that proceedeth out of his mouth.

"If a woman also vow a vow unto the Lord, and bind herself by a bond,
being in her father's house in her youth; And her father hear her vow,
and her bond wherewith she hath bound her soul, and her father shall
hold his peace at her: then all her vows shall stand, and every bond
wherewith she hath bound her soul shall stand.

"But if her father disallow her in the day that he heareth; not any
of her vows, or of her bonds wherewith she hath bound her soul, shall
stand: and the Lord shall forgive her, because her father disallowed
her."--Numbers xxx. 2-5.

While the mother insisted on these topics, the lover in vain conjured
the daughter to declare her own opinion and feelings. She remained
totally overwhelmed, as it seemed--mute, pale, and motionless as a
statue. Only at her mother's command, sternly uttered, she summoned
strength enough to restore to her plighted suitor the piece of broken
gold which was the emblem of her troth. On this he burst forth into a
tremendous passion, took leave of the mother with maledictions, and as
he left the apartment, turned back to say to his weak, if not fickle,
mistresss: "For you, madam, you will be a world's wonder"; a phrase by
which some remarkable degree of calamity is usually implied. He went
abroad, and returned not again. If the last Lord Rutherford was the
unfortunate party, he must have been the third who bore that title, and
who died in 1685.

The marriage betwixt Janet Dalrymple and David Dunbar of Baldoon now
went forward, the bride showing no repugnance, but being absolutely
passive in everything her mother commanded or advised. On the day of the
marriage, which, as was then usual, was celebrated by a great assemblage
of friends and relations, she was the same--sad, silent, and resigned,
as it seemed, to her destiny. A lady, very nearly connected with the
family, told the Au