this time too, Mrs. Yardley died.

All these occurrences, united to the protracted absence of Mark, made
Bridget and Anne extremely unhappy. To increase this unhappiness, Doctor
Yardley took it into his head to dispute the legality of a marriage that
had been solemnized on board a ship. This was an entirely new legal
crotchet, but the federal government was then young, and jurisdictions
had not been determined as clearly as has since been the case. Had it
been the fortune of Doctor Yardley to live in these later times, he
would not have given himself the trouble to put violent constructions on
anything; but, getting a few female friends to go before the necessary
judge, with tears in their eye's, anything would be granted to their
requests, very much as a matter of course. Failing of this, moreover,
there is always the resource of the legislature, which will usually pass
a law taking away a man's wife, or his children, and sometimes his
estate, if a pretty pathetic appeal can be made to it, in the way of
gossip. We have certainly made great progress in this country, within
the last twenty years; but whether it has been in a direction towards
the summit of human perfection, or one downward towards the destruction
of all principles, the next generation will probably be better able to
say than this. Even the government is getting to be gossipian.

In the case of Bridget, however, public sympathy was with her, as it
always will be with a pretty woman. Nevertheless, her father had great
influence in Bucks county, more especially with the federalists and the
anti-depletionists, and it was in his power to give his daughter great
uneasiness, if not absolutely to divorce her. So violent did he become,
that he actually caused proceedings to be commenced in Bridget's name,
to effect a legal separation, taking the grounds that the marriage had
never been consummated, that the ceremony had occurred on board a ship,
that the wife was of tender years, and lastly, that she was an heiress.
Some persons thought the Doctor's proceedings were instigated by the
circumstance that another relative had just died, and left Bridget five
thousand dollars, which were to be paid to her the day she was eighteen,
the period of a female's reaching her majority, according to popular
notions. The possession of this money, which Bridget received and,
placed in the hands of a friend in town, almost made her father frantic
for the divorce, or a decree aga