“Now, my dear, just listen patiently to me for a few moments,” began Mrs. Whately in a wheedling tone.  “I am older than you are.  I know young girls are apt to have romantic notions, but when they reach my age they find that it is ever best to act in view of good and sufficient reasons.  Apart from the terrible emergency that is upon us, you know that we all have had our hearts set on this marriage almost ever since you were born, and we have made no secret of the fact.  It would be a terrible disappointment to us if it should not take place.  I fear that life has been too strict and narrow for you here, but you know that in my home you will dwell in an atmosphere of kindness and indulgence.  I will give up to you whenever you are ready to take the reins after these sore troubles are over.  But, Louise, you do not realize that we are in the midst of a terrible emergency.  You ought not to remain here.  Madison has arranged that we both go south to his cousin Sam’s.”

“I don’t wish to go!” cried the girl, wringing her hands.

“Now, my dear, can’t you just believe that we, who are more experienced and know the danger, wish to do what is best for you and what you will soon see was best?”

“No, I cannot!  I cannot!  I just feel that I can’t marry my cousin without perjuring myself.”

“Surely you don’t love any one else, Louise?”

“What chance have I had to love anyone, except my old mammy?  I don’t know anything about the love which I feel should lead to marriage.  I have just been treated like a child, and then without any girlhood at all I’m to be married to one that I shrink from.  I feel in my very soul that it’s all wrong and unjust.”

“But, my dear, you won’t feel so after you are a wife and safe in your own home.  You will then feel that you have reached woman’s true place and sphere, without incurring the risks and misfortunes which befall so many.  Your guardians might have shown more tact, perhaps, but they meant well, and they wish you well, and are seeking only your welfare.  They feel in honor bound to do what is best for you, and not what, in your inexperience, you may wish at the moment.  As for my son, a warmer-hearted fellow does not breathe.  He loves you fondly.  You can influence him, you can control him as no other can, you have the strongest hold upon him.”

“Alas!” said the girl, divining the ultimate truth, “you love him blindly and wholly; you would sacrifice me, yourself and everything to him, and because he has always had everything his own way, he would have me in spite of the whole protest of my being.  No one truly cares for me; no one understands me.  I have been thrown back upon books and my own nature for such knowledge as I now so desperately need, and I feel that if I am false to my interests, to what I believe is right, my life is spoiled.  I don’t wish to marry any one, and as to all these dangers you so vaguely threaten, I believe that if there is a good God, he will take care of me.”