I Forbid the Banns! — page 119: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

ON THE VOICE THAT BREATHED O'ER EDEN. 109 “Forgive me,.my dearest,” said he ; “but, really, there are times when one should speak in the plainest language.” “Such times should be always with you and me,” said She. - 9 “But you do not mean—— Why, think of-——~”’ He really could not bring himself to ask her to think of their children. Even the plainest speaking must have its limits. ‘“ My dearest love,” she said, smiling, “do you really fancy that I have come to this conclusion—the gravest that any woman could arrive at—without having considered the matter from every standpoint ?”’ ‘“T am sure you have not,” he replied gravely. “ But we must remember that if we have——” “If we have what?” She looked bravely into his face. Now was his time. “Tf we have—have made up our minds,” he said, com- mencing boldly, but finishing weakly under the influence of her straightforward gaze. ‘If we have made up our minds to marry we must not forget that Good God! You cannot fancy that it would be practicable for us in England to carry out your ideas ?”’ ‘‘Why should it not be practicable ?”’ she asked. ‘ You agreed with me just now that the world, with its ways—with its conventionalities—was nothing to us. It is the world and the prejudices of society that have led to the accumula- tion of error—that have led to the expulsion of everything that is spiritual and the cherishing of everything that is material. Marriage, according to society, is a social con- tract. Some good people call it asacred, religious contract ; others maintain that it is a purely civil matter—all agree, however,.that it is a social contract ; and all agree in the absolute necessity for having the machinery of the divorce courtin good working order. My beloved, do we not know, you and I, that the only indissoluble marriage is that which C@ONNIELOOKS (2)