Page:The White Slave, or Memoirs of a Fugitive.djvu/401

 of any man of the superior class who condescends to honor her with his notice; that very desire for a standing in the world which makes the free woman so coy and reserved, making the slave woman yielding and easy; since — looked at merely with that eye of prudence by which, more than by choice, sentiment, or passion, the conduct of women in this behalf is every where regulated — a left-handed marriage with any man of the superior rank is every way more advantageous than any thing to be hoped from any right-handed marriage — even if that were possible, which it is not — with a person of her own degraded condition.

There was, indeed, nothing but Cassy's affection for me, — exposed now to a test such as female constancy, in civilized countries, is seldom tried by, — and a romantic idea which she had taken up that, sooner or later, we should certainly again find each other, that could have made her proof against the efforts of Mr Curtis to win her affections; efforts, as he laughingly told her, enough to have made him husband of half the white girls in New Orleans or Boston either.

Besides being a man of sentiment of a delicacy not to be extinguished even by a residence in an atmosphere so corrupt as that of New Orleans, Mr Curtis had also a good deal of romance in his composition. He could not but applaud a constancy and tenderness of which he desired himself to become the object; but he begged Cassy not to throw away her youth and her charms in an unavailing widowhood, — since the separation between her and me was in all respects equivalent to death, — nor, out of a mere fancy, to persist in refusing a position for herself and her child the best that she could hope; since he promised, in fact, to reward her compliance by a gift of freedom, in due time, to herself and the boy.

If she had any repugnance or dislike to him, he would not push the matter; but ought she, out of