“Ah! you’re too young and pretty to say that!”
“I mean it,” she said earnestly with a smile trembling on her lips.
Her father was silent and pressed her hand for an answer. As they entered the gate of the home, they met young Harris coming out with some books under his arm. He bowed gracefully to them and passed on.
“Oh! Papa, I had forgotten all about your fad for that young negro!”
“Well, what of it, dear?”
“You love me very much, don’t you?” she asked tenderly. “I’m going to ask you to be inconsistent, for my sake.”
“That’s easy. I’m often that for nobody’s sake. Consistency is only the terror of weak minds.”
“I’m going to ask you to keep that young negro out of the house when my Southern friends are here. After my sweetheart comes I expect Sallie and her mother. I wouldn’t have either of them to meet him here in our library and especially in our dining-room for anything on earth!”
“Well, you have joined the rebels, haven’t you?”
“You know I never did like negroes any way,” she continued. “They always gave me the horrors. Young Harris is a scholarly gentleman, I know. He is good-looking, talented, and I’ve played his music for him sometimes to please you, but I can’t get over that little kink in his hair, his big nostrils and full lips, and when he looks at me, it makes my flesh creep.”