"What if they chose a Southern husband for you, and laid their
commands in his favour?"
"I am yours -" I said, looking up at him. I could not say any
more, but I believe Mr. Thorold understood it all, just what I
meant him to understand; how that bond could never be
unloosed, what though the seal of it might be withheld. He was
satisfied.
"You are not brave, Daisy," he said, holding me again very
close; "here are these cheeks fairly grown white under my
supposings. Does that bring the colour back?" he added
laughing.
"Christian," I said, seizing my time while my face was half
hidden, "what would you do, supposing I should prove to be a
very poor girl?"
"What is that?" said he, laughing more gayly, and raising my
face a little.
"You know what our property is."
"No, I do not."
"You know - I mean, you know, my father's and mother's
property is in Southern lands mostly, and in those that
cultivate them."
"Yes. I believe I have understood that."
"Well, I will never be the owner of those people - the people
that cultivate those lands; and so I suppose I shall not be
worth a sixpence; for the land is not much without the
people."
"You will not be the owner of them?"
"No."
"Why do you tell me that?" said Mr. Thorold gravely.
"I wanted you to know -" I said, hesitating and beginning very
much to wish my words unsaid.
"And the question is, what I will do in the supposed
circumstances? Was that it?"
"I said that," - I assented.
"What shall I do?" said Mr. Thorold. "I don't know. If I am in
camp, I will pitch a tent for my wife; it shall have soft
carpets and damask cushions; as many servants as she likes,
and one in especial who will take care that the others do her
bidding; scanty accommodations, perhaps, but the air full of
welcome. She will like it. If I am stationed in town
somewhere, I will fill her house with things to please her. If
I am at the old farm, I will make her confess, in a little
while, that it is the pleasantest place she ever saw in her
life. I don't know what I will do! I will do something to make
her ashamed she ever asked me such a question."
"Oh, don't!" said I, with my cheeks burning. "I am very much
ashamed now."
"Do you acknowledge that?" he said, laughing and taking his
revenge. "So you ought."
But then he made me sit down on the grass again and threw
himself at my feet, and began to talk of other things. He
would not let me go back to the former subjects. He kept me in
a state of amusement, making me talk too about what he would;
and with the light of that last subject I had unluckily
started, shining all over his face and sparkling in his eye
and smile, until my face was in a condition of permanent
colour. I had given him an advantage, and he took it and
played with it. I resolved I would never give him another. He
had gone back apparently to the mood of that evening at Miss
Cardigan's; and was full of life and spirits and mischief. I
could do nothing but fall in with his mood and be happy;
although I remembered I had not gained my point yet; and I
half suspected he had a mind I should not gain it. It was a
very bright, short half hour; and then I reminded him it was
growing late.