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"Alas!" said the other, "what is't thou sayst? Knowest thou not that we have vowed our virginity to God?" "Oh," rejoined the first, "think but how many vows are made to Him all day long, and never a one performed: and so, for our vow, let Him find another or others to perform it." "But," said her companion, "suppose that we conceived, how then?"

Above, the cold moon; all about, the grim, stolid, half-hostile natives; close by, that strange, serpentine, savage wife, guarding, cat-like, the sleep of her cannibal husband; behind, the watchful Eyes of Tu-Kila-Kila, waiting ever in the background, ready to raise a loud shout of alarm and warning the moment the fatal branch was actually broken, but mute, by their vows, till that moment was accomplished.

Only by this itinerant method could the people be reached and the preachers of heresy be encountered. One of the chief sources of strength in the heretical sects was the justness of their attack upon the Catholic monastic orders, whose immense riches belied their vows of poverty.

The one vows and swears to the other that this plan will be kept so secret that never will it be known in the future. Thus the parley is ended; and when it came to the morning the emperor of Germany sends for his daughter. She comes at his command but why should I spin out my story? The two emperors together have so arranged matters that the marriage takes place and joy begins in the palace.

"No, you must still love him best," Violet cries, in all the agony of renunciation. "But who will love you best?" she asks, innocently. "Mamma, I shall love you best until I grow to be a big lady and have a lover like Polly. Then you know I shall have to care for him!" Is her best of all love to come from a child not of her own blood, instead of the husband of her vows?

And then, if so, you must have repressed those thoughts, and felt glad to sacrifice heiress and fortune and a fair future to me without my knowledge. In your young man's generosity, you must have resolved to be faithful to the vows which bind us each to each in the sight of God. My past pain has risen up before your mind, and the misery from which you rescued me has been my protection.

It was on occasion of the annual celebration in honor of Latona and her offspring, Apollo and Diana, when the people of Thebes were assembled, their brows crowned with laurel, bearing frankincense to the altars and paying their vows, that Niobe appeared among the crowd. Her attire was splendid with gold and gems, and her face as beautiful as the face of an angry woman can be.

Some of them died only a few days after taking their vows; others, on the day itself; while others lived half a century, and more, in the practice of the most heroic virtue. Some were called by the grace of God after a life of worldliness and sin; while others had already reached a high degree of sanctity when they offered their sacrifice to God.

As Zelma passed up to her chamber, she said to herself bitterly, "Thus openly and fearlessly can the rich and well-born woo and be wooed, while such as we must steal away to happiness as to crime, and plight our vows under the chill and shadow of night!"

Besides, if he did, it would do no harm; for the vows that he would take, though so utterly irrevocable in the case of common men, would all cease to be of force in his case, in the event of his father's death, and his succeeding to the throne. And, in the mean time, he could go on, they said, taking his ease and pleasure, and living as he had always done.