Page:Randall Parrish--My Lady of the South.djvu/34

MY LADY OF THE SOUTH I was a child, and didn't know my own mind; then he endeavored to frighten me. Oh, Joe, Joe, if I only had some one I could go to for advice! But no one will even listen to me seriously. There does n't seem anything left me but to marry this man. Father and George both think so highly of him, they will not hear a word spoken against him. I simply had to talk with some one, Joe, and let out my heart; that's why I came out here to you. Oh, I know you can't help me, but you're sorry for me, ain't you, old Joe? It helps just to know some one understands, and is sorry. I tell you, all the slaves in the South are not black, and I reckon it's just as hard to be born free, and then sold, as any other way. I might have learned to like him if he had only come to me as a man should, striving to win me for himself, and treating me as if I possessed a mind and heart of my own; but no, he ignored me entirely, and appealed to papa and George, telling them of the danger I was in here,and of how valuable the two estates would be if joined together. That's the way they have forced me along to the sacrifice—I'm sold for the price of the land."

"Ye pore little girl."

"Say poor little fool, rather," and she sprang to her feet, her cheeks burning with swift indignation. "I should have fought it, fought it; but all that is too late now. I am going, Joe; there is no use talking any longer, and so I am going to smile and look happy, and no one but you will ever know that I am not. You dear old black thing, you've been more like a father to me than any one else ever has. And I am going to have you and [ 26 ]