Miss Matoaca's head had dropped as if from weariness over her thin breast, which palpitated under the piece of old lace, like the breast of a wounded bird. Then, as the girl stopped and caught her breath sharply from sheer stress of feeling, the little lady looked up again and straightened herself with a gesture of pride.
"Do not make the mistake, Sally," she said, "of thinking that a humble birth means necessarily greater honesty than a high one. Generations of refinement are the best material for character-building, and you might as easily find the qualities you esteem in a gentleman of your own social position."
"I might, Aunt Matoaca; but, as a matter of fact, have I? Until you have seen a man fight can you know him? Is family tradition, after all, as good a school as the hard world? A life like Ben's does not always make a man good, I know, but it has made him so. If this were not true—if any one could prove to me that he had been false or cruel to any living creature—man, woman, or animal—I'd give him up to-day and not break my heart—"
It was true, I knew it as she spoke, and I could have knelt to her.
"You are blind, Sally, blind and rash as your mother before you," returned Miss Mitty.
"No, Aunt Mitty, it is you who are blind—who see by the old values that the world has long since outgrown—who think you can assign a place to a man and say to him, 'You belong there and cannot come out of it.' But, oh, Aunt Matoaca, surely you, who have sacrificed so much for what you believe to be right,—who have placed principle before any claims of blood, surely you will uphold me—"
"My child, my child," replied the poor lady, with a sob, "I placed principle first, but never emotion—never emotion."
"Poor Sarah was the only one of us who gave up everything for the sake of an emotion," added Miss Mitty, "and what did it bring her except misery?"
Our cause was lost—we saw it at the same instant—and again Sally gave me her hand and stood side by side with me in the firelight.
"I am sorry, dear aunts," she said gently, and turning to me, she added slowly and clearly, "I will marry you a year from to-day, if you will wait, Ben."