Mr. Bolton seemed to think that the
argument was good;--but Mrs. Bolton was of opinion that to become
willingly the daughter-in-law of an infidel, would be to throw oneself
with one's eyes open in the way of perdition. Hester through all this
declared that nothing should now turn her from the man she loved, 'Not
though he were an infidel himself?' said the terror-stricken mother.
'Nothing!' said Hester, bravely. 'Of course I should try to change him.'
A more wretched woman than Mrs. Bolton might not probably then have been
found. She suddenly perceived herself to be quite powerless with the
child over whom her dominion had hitherto been supreme. And she felt
herself compelled to give way to people whom, with all her heart, she
hated. She determined that nothing,--nothing should induce her to soften
her feelings to this son-in-law who was forced upon her. The man had
come and had stolen from her her treasure, her one treasure. And that
other man whom she had always feared and always hated, Robert Bolton,
the man whose craft and worldliness had ever prevented her from
emancipating her husband from the flesh and the devil, had brought all
this about. Then she reconciled herself to her child, and wept over her,
and implored heaven to save her. Hester tried to argue with her,--spoke
of her own love,--appealed to her mother, asking whether, as she had now
declared her love, it could be right that she should abandon a man who
was so good and so fondly attached to her. Then Mrs. Bolton would hide
her face, and sob, and put up renewed prayers to heaven that her
daughter might not by means of this unhappy marriage become lost to all
sense of grace.

It was very miserable, but still the prospect of the marriage was never
abandoned nor postponed. A day had been settled a little before
Christmas, and the Robert Boltons would allow of no postponement. The
old man was so tormented by the misery of his own home that he himself
was averse to delay. There could be no comfort for him till the thing
should have been done. Mrs. Bolton had suggested that it should be put
off till the spring;--but he had gloomily replied that as the thing had
to be done, the sooner it was done the better.

It had been settled almost from the first that the marriage festival
should be held, not at Puritan Grange, but at The Nurseries; and
gradually it came to be understood that Mrs. Bolton herself would not be
present, either at the church or at the breakfast