n her outward conduct, founding
her convictions in this matter upon precedent and upon the general
convictions of the world. In the matter of bestowing herself upon
a suitor, a girl is held to be subject to her parents. So much she
knew, or believed that she knew; and therefore she would obey. She
had read and heard of girls who would correspond with their lovers
clandestinely, would run away with their lovers, would marry their
lovers as it were behind their fathers' backs. No act of this kind
would she do. She had something within her which would make it
dreadful to her ever to have to admit that she had been personally
wrong,--some mixture of pride and principle, which was strong enough
to keep her stedfast in her promised obedience. She would do nothing
that could be thrown in her teeth; nothing that could be called
unfeminine, indelicate, or undutiful. But she had high ideas of what
was due to herself, and conceived that she would be wronged by her
father, should her father take advantage of her sense of duty to
crush her heart. She had her own rights and her own privileges, with
which grievous and cruel interference would be made, should her
father, because he was her father, rob her of the only thing which
was sweet to her taste or desirable in her esteem. Because she was
his heiress he had no right to make her his slave. But even should he
do so, she had in her own hands a certain security. The bondage of a
slave no doubt he might allot to her, but not the task-work. Because
she would cling to her duty and keep the promise which she had made
to him, it would be in his power to prevent the marriage upon which
she had set her heart; but it was not within his power, or within
his privilege as a father, to force upon her any other marriage. She
would never help him with her hand in that adjustment of his property
of which he thought so much unless he would help her in her love.
And in the meantime sunshine should be banished from the house, such
sunshine as had shone round her head. She did not so esteem herself
as to suppose that, because she was sad, therefore her father
and mother would be wretched; but she did feel herself bound to
contribute to the house in general all the wretchedness which might
come from her own want of sunlight. She suffered under a terrible
feeling of ill-usage. Why was she, because she was a girl and
an heiress, to be debarred from her own happiness? If she were
willing to risk herself, w