His strong words, however, combining with the circumstances of
her lot, had broken the spell of her aunt's influence, and had planted in
her mind the thought that any useless suffering on her part was not
loyalty to the memory of her father and mother. Her new impulse was to
make the most and best of her life as far as she could conscientiously:
and the hope would assert itself that if she were firm he would eventually
be won over to her position. "If he loves as I do," she thought, "he will
be. He, no doubt, is sincere, but he has been beguiled into seeing things
in the light of his immediate interests. Love to me, if it is genuine, and
loyalty to the cause for which his father gave his life, should lead him
to the dignified submission of the conquered and away from all association
with the conquerors that can be avoided. I'll prove to him," was her
mental conclusion, accompanied with a flash of her dark eyes, "that a girl
ignorant of the world and its ways, and with the help only of a former
slave, can earn her bread, and thus show him how needless are his Northern
allies."
Thoughts like these had been swiftly coursing through her mind while
dining, and therefore, when she joined Aun' Sheba in the kitchen, she was
ready to employ every faculty, sharpened to the utmost, in the tasks
before her.
In that humble arena, and by the prosaic method contemplated, she would
assert her unsubdued spirit, and maintain a consistency which should not
be marred, even at the bidding of love, by an insincere acceptance of his
views and associations.
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