Page:The leopard's spots - a romance of the white man's burden-1865-1900 (IA leopardsspotsrom00dixo).pdf/459

 Sallie slipped her arm around Mrs. Durham. "You don't think I am doing wrong to disobey my parents thus, do you?" she faltered. "I feel just for a moment, now that I have decided, bruised and homesick,—I want my mother. Let me feel your arms about my neck just once. You are a woman. You love me as well as Charlie, tell me, am I doing wrong?"

Mrs. Durham kissed her. "I do love you child. It is a solemn hour for your soul. You alone can decide such a question. Any intrusion of advice in such a trial would be a sacrilege. Under ordinary conditions it would be a dangerous thing for a girl thus to leave her father's roof and take this step that will decide forever her destiny. Marriage is something that swallows up life, the past, the present, the future. We seem to have never known anything else. I can only say, if I were in your place, knowing all I would do as you are doing."

Sallie impulsively kissed her, bit her lips to keep back a tear, and held her hand.

"I know your father well," she continued. "He is a man I greatly admire. But he is unreasonable with any one who dares to cross his will. You could never get his consent now that his pride is aroused except by forcing it. When it is over, he will forgive you, and when he knows your lover as I know him, he will be as proud of his son-in-law as a peacock of his plumage."

"Oh, it is so sweet to hear just the advice one wishes in such an hour," cried Sallie. "I shall always love you for these words."

"Yes, I congratulate you on the end of your long hesitation. I know you will be happy. Any woman would be happy with the love of such a man, and he was made for you."

"Then you don't believe with Papa," she said with