Hulda's side.

"That dissipated boy! Oh, Hulda, where is your real pride? He has
abandoned his mother. He is a poor gypsy. No, I must save you from such
a mistake. It is my duty to do it."

"I thank you for teaching me, whatever made you do it. If I could awaken
in you some unselfishness towards me and my new love, sir, it would be
the greatest gratitude I could show you. You conceal so many hard, bad
things under your word 'conservative,' that the gentle feelings, like
forgiveness, have forsaken you, I fear."

"No," the Colonel said, stiffly, his shoulders becoming more military,
"insults to my honor I never forgive. People who do not resent, have no
conservative principle."

"I forgive, as I hope to be forgiven, Joe, Aunt Patty, Van Dorn, and
you. I hope pity and mercy and sweet, unselfish love, such as I think
mine is, may grow in all of you! Oh, Colonel,"--she turned to him
earnestly, and, raising her hands to impress him, he merely noted the
elegance of her wrists and brown arms--"the buying and selling of these
human beings makes everybody unfeeling. It is stealing their souls and
bodies, whether they be bought at the court-house or kidnapped on the
roads. My dream of joy is to have a husband who will work with his own
free hands, and till his little farm, and sail his vessel, without a
slave. Above that I expect and ask nothing from the dear God who has so
long been my protector in this den of crime."

"Warm or cold, hectoring or tender, you are splendid, Hulda," McLane
said, his face fairly refulgent. "Now let me show you a conservative
picture of your real deserts. I am a bachelor. I keep an elegant house
in Baltimore. My table is supplied with the best in the market; my
servants are my slaves, and never disobey me; my paintings are
celebrated; books I never run to--they are radical things--but I can buy
them; my carriage is the best Rahway turn-out, and my horses are
Diomeds. In Frederick County I have an estate, in sight of the
mountains. As a Christian act, I will take you away from this spot, to
which you seem but half kindred, and make you my wife."

"You ask me to marry you?"

"Conservatively; that is, continue to be my pupil, and obey me. I will
bring your mind out of its ignorance, your body out of rags, your
associations out of crime. I will provide for you, as you are obedient,
while I live and after I am dead. You shall travel with me, and see
bright cities--New Orleans, Charleston, Havana. I