“Nonsense! Danger is the natural element of man! to seek it is the nature of the creature!”
“Yes, mamma; but illness, fever, burning thirst, solitude, and helplessness, is not. And, if I thought that Mark were suffering all these things in some wretched Western cabin, and I not near to bathe his head and give him a cup of cold water, and to nurse and comfort and soothe him, but separated from him by thousands of miles of mountains and plains, I tell you, mamma, it would nearly break my heart! It is no use! I must go with him, to meet whatever of good or ill Fate has in store. It can have nothing else so evil as a separation! Oh! I feel as if the worst calamity that could possibly befall me, would be a separation from him.”
“Foolish girl! You love that broad-shouldered, robust man, as tenderly as a mother loves her babe!”
“I love him with a tenderness and sympathy that makes me tremblingly alive to his least sorrow or lightest pain; and yet mark you, mamma, with an esteem, with a depth of respect, with an honour that makes me aspire to his approbation as my highest good under Heaven!”
“O Rosalie, I will not farther oppose you! Yet, if you only had strength to endure the hardships of a Western life, I should feel less anxiety.”
“Do not fear. I shall be able to endure, because ‘my good will is to it;’ and energetic, because I shall have a good motive; and healthy, because I shall be happy—because my heart will be right and at rest; for I say it again, because it is a great deep truth—‘Out of the heart are the issues of life!’ Yes, out of the heart are the issues of will, purpose, hope, health, strength, enterprise, achievement, SUCCESS! Out of the heart are the issues of all the good that can come back to us in time or eternity! on earth or in Heaven!”
CHAPTER XVIII.
DEPARTURES.
“We foresee and could foretel
Thy future fortune sure and well;
But those passionate eyes speak true, speak true,