"Surely you don't love any one else, Louise?"
"What chance have I had to love anyone, except my old mammy? I don't know anything about the love which I feel should lead to marriage. I have just been treated like a child, and then without any girlhood at all I'm to be married to one that I shrink from. I feel in my very soul that it's all wrong and unjust."
"But, my dear, you won't feel so after you are a wife and safe in your own home. You will then feel that you have reached woman's true place and sphere, without incurring the risks and misfortunes which befall so many. Your guardians might have shown more tact, perhaps, but they meant well, and they wish you well, and are seeking only your welfare. They feel in honor bound to do what is best for you, and not what, in your inexperience, you may wish at the moment. As for my son, a warmer-hearted fellow does not breathe. He loves you fondly. You can influence him, you can control him as no other can, you have the strongest hold upon him."
"Alas!" said the girl, divining the ultimate truth, "you love him blindly and wholly; you would sacrifice me, yourself and everything to him, and because he has always had everything his own way, he would have me in spite of the whole protest of my being. No one truly cares for me; no one understands me. I have been thrown back upon books and my own nature for such knowledge as I now so desperately need, and I feel that if I am false to my interests, to what I believe is right, my life is spoiled. I don't wish to marry any one, and as to all these dangers you so vaguely threaten, I believe that if there is a good God, he will take care of me."
"Well, my dear," said Mrs. Whately, striving to hide the fact that she was baffled, "we won't talk any more about it to-night. You are excited and worried, and incapable of wise judgment. Rest and sleep are what you need now," and she kissed the girl, who did not return the caress.
"Wise judgment!" she muttered, bitterly, "what fine words they use! So you, too, are hopelessly against me. You would give me to your son just as you used to give him everything he cried for when a child. Well, then, I'll appeal to the minister himself. I don't believe he can marry me against my will. At any rate, I shall never give my consent, never; and perhaps somebody may come in time. My people are teaching me to fear them even more than the Yankees."
CHAPTER XI
AUN' JINKEY'S WARNING
The night passed like a lull in the storm. Perkins reported that the negroes were quiet, contenting themselves with whispering and watchfulness. Aun' Jinkey smoked and dozed in her chair, listening to every sound, but no "squinch-owl" renewed her fears. The family at the mansion were too perturbed to sleep much, for all knew that the morrow must bring decisive events. The three soldiers sent after the recreant trooper returned from a bootless chase and were allowed to rest, but Whately saw to it that there was a vigilant watch kept by relief of guards on the part of the others. He was not very greatly encouraged by his mother's report, but as the hours passed the habits of his life and the tendencies of his nature asserted themselves with increasing force. He would marry his cousin on the morrow; he would not be balked in his dearest hope and wish. The very resistance of the girl stimulated his purpose, for throughout all his life nothing so enhanced his desire for anything as difficulty and denial. The subduing the girl's high spirit into subservience to his own was in itself a peculiarly alluring prospect, and he proved how little he appreciated her character by whiling away part of the night over "Taming of the Shrew." A creature of fitful impulse, nurtured into an arrogant sense of superiority, he banished all compunctions, persuading himself easily into the belief that as soldier, officer, and lover he was taking the manly course in going straight forward. "The idea of consulting a whimsical girl at such a time," he muttered, "when a Yankee horde may descend on the plantation within forty-eight hours."
Miss Lou was quite as sleepless as himself, and also did a great deal of thinking. She had too much pride to hide and mope in her room. Her high, restless spirit craved action, and she determined to brave whatever happened with the dignity of courage. She would face them all and assert what she believed to be her rights before them all, even the clergyman himself. She therefore appeared at the breakfast table with just enough color in her cheeks and fire in her eyes to enhance her beauty.