e affair in her
early life, made and kept a vow that she would retire to her bed, and
there spend the remainder of her days. It was a stern vow but she kept
her word, "and the years have come and gone, and the house has never
been swept or garnished, the garden is an overgrown tangle, and the
eccentric lady has spent twenty years between the sheets." But whether
this piece of romance is to be accepted or not, love has been the
cause of many foolish acts, and many a disappointed damsel, has acted
in no less eccentric a fashion than Miss Havisham, who was so
completely overcome by the failure of Compeyson to appear on the
wedding morning that she became fossilised, and gave orders that
everything was to be kept unchanged, but to remain as it had been on
that hapless day. Henceforth she was always attired in her bridal
dress with lace veil from head to foot, white shoes, bridal flowers in
her white hair, and jewels on her hands and neck. Years went on, the
wedding breakfast remained set on the table, while the poor half
demented lady flitted from one room to another like a restless ghost;
and the case is recorded of another lady whose lover was arrested for
forgery on the day before their marriage was to have taken place. Her
vow took the form of keeping to her room, sitting winter and summer
alike at her casement and waiting for him who was turning the
treadmill, and who was never to come again.

On the other hand, vows have been made, but persons have contrived to
rid themselves of the inconveniences without breaking them, reminding
us of Benedick, who finding the charms of his "Dear Lady Disdain" too
much for his celibate resolves, gets out of his difficulty by
declaring that "When I said I would die a bachelor, I did not think I
should live till I were married." Equally ludicrous, also, is the
story told of a certain man, who, greatly terrified in a storm, vowed
he would eat no haberdine, but, just as the danger was over, he
qualified his promise with "Not without mustard, O Lord." And
Voltaire, in one of his romances, represents a disconsolate widow
vowing that she will never marry again, "so long as the river flows by
the side of the hill." But a few months afterwards the widow recovers
from her grief, and, contemplating matrimony, takes counsel with a
clever engineer. He sets to work, the river is deviated from its
course, and, in a short time, it no longer flows by the side of the
hill. The lady, released from her