“Yer war, war ye? But I warn’t—not by a long chalk; and I don’t want to squat in any o’ yer shanties agin—not if I kin keep out o’ ’em. Hyar’s a plan by which yur may be rich for the rest o’ yur life; an’ thur’d be no need for me starvin’ eyther. Alf Brandon kums in for a good plantation, wi’ three score niggers on it; an’ thur’s nothin’ to hinder yur from bein’ mistress o’ the hul lot.”
“I don’t wish it.”
“But I do; an’ I mean to hev it so. Don’t git it in yur head, good-lookin’ as yur may think yurself, thet the world air a stick o’ sugar-candy an’ ye’ve got nothin’ to do but suck it. I tell yur, gurl, I’ve drifted into difeequilties. I’ve had some rasources you know nothin’ beout; but I can’t tell the day the supplies may be stopt, an’ then we’ve got to go under. Now, d’ye unnerstan’ me?”
“Indeed, father, I know nothing of your affairs. How should I? But I am sure I should never be happy as the wife of Alfred Brandon.”
“An’ why? What hev yur get agin him? He’s a good-lookin’ feller—doggoned good-lookin’.”
“It has nothing to do with his looks.”
“What then? His karracktur, I s’pose?”
“You know it is not good.”
“Dum karracktur! What signify that? Ef all the young weemen in these parts war to wait till they got a husband o’ good karracktur, they’d stay a long spell single, I reck’n. Alf Brandon ain’t no worse nor other people; an’, what’s o’ far more konsequince, he air richer than most. Ye’d be a fool, gurl, a dod-rotted eedyit, not to jump at the chance. An’ don’t you get it into yur head that I’m gwine to let it slip. Willin’ or not, ye’ve got to be the wife o’ Alf Brandon. Refuse? an’ by the Eturnal, ye shall be no longer my darter? Ye hear that?”
“I hear you, father. It is very painful to hear you; and painful, too, for me to tell you, that your threat cannot change me. I’m sure I have been obedient to you in everything else. Why should you force me to this?”