Anxiously, and with a nervous fear lest some untoward circumstance might prevent the marriage he was about effecting with a silly heiress, did the young man await the response to these notes, and great was his relief, when informed, after the lapse of an hour, that the Reverend gentleman, whose attendance he had desired, was in the house.
A private parlor had been engaged, and in this the ceremony of marriage was to take place.

This parlor adjoined a chamber, in which Caroline awaited, with a trembling heart, the issue of events.

It was now, for the first time, as she was about taking the final and irretrievable step, that her resolution began to fail her.

Her father's anger, the grief of her mother, the unknown state upon which she was about entering, all came pressing upon her thoughts with a sense of realization such as she had not known before.
Doubts as to the propriety of what she was about doing, came fast upon her mind.

In the nearness of the approaching event, she could look upon it stripped of its halo of romance.