Page:The White Slave, or Memoirs of a Fugitive.djvu/390

 pinch, and be dunned at home, with now and then a visit from the sheriff, for all the rest of the year.

The young Mrs Thomas that was to be, as yet Miss Jemima Devens, delighted at the idea of having captivated a southern planter, and of passing suddenly from poverty to riches, hastened to accept the offer of his heart and fortune, which Mr Thomas made her after a week's acquaintance, in the course of which they had met three times. Unfortunately she did not stop to consider that, southern planter or not, Mr Thomas was old enough to be her father, had a vulgar, stupid, sleepy look, could not speak English grammatically, and was an enormous consumer of tobacco and brandy; his affection, even during his courtship, divided pretty equally, to all appearances, between chewing, smoking, mint juleps, and Miss Devens, notwithstanding his frequent protestations that he cared for nothing in the world but her.

That he was really in love with her, so far as it was possible for such an oyster to be in love, was no doubt true; and for a young lady without connections or money, dependent:on her own efforts, with no charms or accomplishments beyond those possessed by a thousand other competitors, and beginning, also, to verge to the age when the sinking into old maidhood comes to be considered as a possible, however awful contingency, — for such a young lady to be fallen in love with, even though it be by an oyster in the similitude of a man, is a thing not to be despised; and the said human oyster having the reputation of being rich, and able to support her in idleness and luxury, what proportion of girls of the age and in the position of Miss Devens, whether in New England or Old, or elsewhere, would refuse to accept him for a husband?

Miss Devens did confess to some little misgiving on one point. She had a great horror of negroes — a natural antipathy, as she thought; though she did remember, that when a very little girl, they used to frighten her into good behavior by threatening to