“And share his triumphs when I would not share his toils? No! no! no!”
“It would be so much safer, Rosalie!”
“And so much more prudent to allow him, in those moments of depression and despondency that must come, to think that it is only the successful statesman or jurist whose fortunes I would share, not those of the toiling aspirant! To turn a second India on his hands, and so forever and forever break down his faith in womanhood, in disinterestedness, and in truth! No! no! no! and a thousand times no! I have the blessed privilege of healing the heart that India wounded, of lifting up the brow that she bowed down, of strengthening and sustaining the faith that she weakened.”
“If you should be a burden to him?”
“I will never be a burden to him! Providence will never so fail me. Mine is no sudden girlish fancy. It is a deep, earnest affection, arising from the profoundest sentiments of esteem and honour that ever woman felt for man—and the Father who inspired it will bless it. He who in his benignant love said, ‘It is not good for man to be alone,’ will strengthen me to be a true help-meet for my husband.”
“O Rosalie! be practical, child!”
“Be faithful first, and practical afterwards.”
“Rosalie, you don’t know what you brave! Fancy yourself and Mark now married, and housekeeping (forsooth!) in some wretched log cabin or some lath-and-plaster shell of a shanty, in some new Western village. Fancy yourselves both down with that curse of new settlements, the ague, and each unable to help the other, and no one to give you a cup of tea, and perhaps with no tea in the house.”
“That is a plain statement of a very dismal contingency, dear mamma. Yet I have no doubt that we should shiver and shake safely through it, as others have done. Yet it is not fair or wise to contemplate the worst possibility only. The Western pioneers are not always laid up with the ague and without tea!” said Rosalie, with a sparkle of fun in her eyes.
But in a moment after, the young girl’s face grew serious, and she said, in a tremulous voice, “And besides, dear mamma, the very bugbears that you have evoked to frighten me from my journey only draw me on to go. Oh, do you think, mamma, that I could bear to stay here in safety, ease, and luxury, and know that he was far away, exposed to all the dangers, hardships, and privations of a pioneer life?”