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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. During the two days that she had been with Lawson, she had seen him in states of absent thought, when the true quality of his mind wrote itself out upon his face so distinctly that even a dim-sighted one could read; and more than once she had felt an inward shrinking from him that was irrepressible. Weak and foolish as she was, she was yet pure-minded; and though in the beginning she did not, because her heart was overlaid with frivolity, perceive the sphere of his impurity, yet now, as the moment was near at hand when there was to be a marriage-conjunction, she began to feel this sphere as something that suffocated her spirit. At length, in the agitation of contending thoughts and emotions, the heart of the poor girl failed her, till, in the utter abandonment of feeling, she gave way to a flood of tears and commenced wringing her hands. At this moment, having arranged with the clergyman to begin the ceremony forthwith, Lawson entered her room, and, to his surprise, saw her in tears.

“Oh, Charles!” she exclaimed, clasping her hands and extending them towards him, “Take me home to my father! Oh, take me home to my father!”

Lawson was confounded at such an unexpected change in Caroline. “You shall go to your father the moment the ceremony is over,” he replied; “Come! Mr. B—- is all ready.”

“Oh, no, no! Take me now! Take me now!” returned the poor girl in an imploring voice. And she sat before the man who had tempted her from the path of safety, weeping, and quivering like a leaf in the wind.

“Caroline! What has come over you!” said Lawson, in deep perplexity. “This is only a weakness. Come! Nerve your heart like a brave, good girl! Come! It will soon be over.”

And he bent down and kissed her wet cheek, while she shrunk from him with an involuntary dread. But, he drew his arm around her waist, and almost forced her to rise.

“There now! Dry your tears!” And he placed his handkerchief to her eyes. “It is but a moment of weakness, Caroline,–of natural weakness.”

As he said this, he was pressing her forward towards the door of the apartment where the clergyman (such clergymen disgrace their profession) awaited their appearance.

“Charles?” said Caroline, with a suddenly constrained calmness–“do you love me?”

“Better than my own life!” was instantly replied.

“Then take me to my father. I am too young–too weak–too inexperienced for this.”

“The moment we are united you shall go home,” returned Lawson. “I will not hold you back an instant.”

“Let me go now, Charles! Oh, let me go now!”

“Are you mad, girl!” exclaimed the young man, losing his self-control. And, with a strong arm, he forced her into the next room. For a brief period, the clergyman hesitated, on seeing the distressed bride. Then he opened the book he held in his hand and began to read the service. As his voice, in tones of solemnity, filled the apartment, Caroline grew calmer. She felt like one driven forward by a destiny against which it was vain to contend. All the responses had been made by Lawson, and now the clergyman addressed her. Passively she was about uttering her assentation, when the door of the room was thrown open, and two men entered.

“Stop!” was instantly cried in a loud, agitated voice, which Caroline knew to be that of her father, and never did that voice come to her ears with a more welcome sound.

Lawson started, and moved from her side. While Caroline yet stood trembling and doubting, the man who had come in with Mr. Everett approached Lawson, and laying his hand upon him, said–“I arrest you on a charge of swindling!”

With a low cry of distress, Caroline sprung towards her father; but he held his hands out towards her as if to keep her off, saying, at the same time–

“Are you his wife?”

“No, thank Heaven!” fell from her lips.

In the next moment she was in her father’s arms, and both were weeping.

Narrow indeed was the escape made by Caroline Everett; an escape which she did not fully comprehend until a few months afterwards, when the trial of Lawson took place, during which revelations of villany were made, the recital of which caused her heart to shudder. Yes, narrow had been her escape! Had her father been delayed a few moments longer, she would have become the wife of a man soon after condemned to expiate his crimes against society in the felon’s cell!

May a vivid realization of what Caroline Everett escaped, warn other young girls, who bear a similar relation to society, of the danger that lurks in their way. Not once in a hundred instances, is a school girl approached with lover-like attentions, except by a man who is void of principle; and not once in a hundred instances do marriages entered upon clandestinely by such persons, prove other than an introduction to years of wretchedness.