“Ada,” he had said, “there are bad times coming to us.”
“Good times, I hope,” she had answered. “No one could expect that the thing could be done without some struggle. When the struggle has passed we shall say that good times have come.” The thing of which she spoke was that little thing of which she was ever thinking—the enfranchisement of four millions of slaves.
“I fear that there will be bad times first. Of course I am thinking of you now.”
“Bad or good, they will not be worse to me than to others.”
“They would be very bad to you if this state were to secede, and if you were to join your lot to my brother’s. In the first place, all your fortune would be lost to him and to you.”
“I do not see that; but of course I will caution him that it may be so. If it alters his views, I shall hold him free to act as he chooses.”
“But, Ada, should it not alter yours?”
“What,—because of my money?—or because Tom could not afford to marry a girl without a fortune?”
“I did not mean that. He might decide that for himself. But your marriage with him under such circumstances as those which he now contemplates, would be as though you married a Spaniard or a Greek adventurer. You would be without country, without home, without fortune, and without standing-ground in the world. Look you, Ada, before you answer. I frankly own that I tell you this because I want you to be my wife, and not his.”
“Never, Frank; I shall never be your wife, whether I marry him or no.”