Mother has always believed there was
something wrong about the transaction, and that father was not
indebted to Fetters in any such sum as Fetters claimed. But we could
find no papers and we had no proof, and Fetters took the plantation
for his debt. He changed its name to Sycamore; he wanted a post-office
there, and there were too many Belleviews."
"Does he own it still?"
"Yes, and runs it--with convict labour! The thought makes me shudder!
We were rich when he was poor; we are poor and he is rich. But we
trust in God, who has never deserted the widow and the fatherless. By
His mercy we have lived and, as mother says, held up our heads, not
in pride or haughtiness, but in self-respect, for we cannot forget
what we were."
"Nor what you are, Laura, for you are wonderful," said the colonel,
not unwilling to lighten a situation that bordered on intensity. "You
should have married and had children. The South needs such mothers as
you would have made. Unless the men of Clarendon have lost their
discernment, unless chivalry has vanished and the fire died out of the
Southern blood, it has not been for lack of opportunity that your name
remains unchanged."
Miss Laura's cheek flushed unseen in the shadow of the porch.
"Ah, Henry, that would be telling! But to marry me, one must have
married the family, for I could not have left them--they have had only
me. I have not been unhappy. I do not know that I would have had my
life different.
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