“To make a long story short,—for I see you are growing restless,—I was married in my callow childhood, married in obedience to my mother’s wish. She was a widow and poor; my suitor was accomplished and rich. If he’d been a sensible man he would have courted and married my mother, who adores him. But old men are such idiots! They’re always hunting young women, or children, for wives.” “You’re complimentary.” “Beg your pardon; present company is always excepted. They imagine that young and silly girls will make happy and contented wives,—when any person not overcome by vanity knows that no young man or young woman can be truly enamored of anybody that’s in the sere and yellow leaf. What would you think of a woman of mamma’s age, for instance, making love to a boy? And if such a boy should consent to marry her, who believes that he would be content with his bargain after his beard was grown?” “Ask me something easy,” said the Captain. “My father was a physician; and it was my childhood’s delight to study his books, attend his clinics, and make myself generally useful among his patients. I never dreamed of surrendering my person, my liberty, my will, and the absolute control of my individuality to the commands of any human being on earth except myself, till after the deed was done for me by another. No wonder I rebelled when I reached the years of maturity and discretion.” “Mr. McAlpin was a good man and a gentleman, Captain Ranger,” interrupted Mrs. Benson. “Yes, mamma; he was always ‘good.’ He never whipped his wife; he gave her everything that money could buy. There is no reason that the law can recognize for me to be dissatisfied. But I don’t belong primarily to myself, and I don’t like it. Mamma here, with her ideas of woman’s place in life, would have made him an excellent and happy wife.” “He was always a gentleman, Daphne,” repeated her mother. “Don’t do him an injustice.” “Yes; and I was his personal and private property. I was a beautiful animal, as he thought, to bedeck with his trinkets and show off his wealth; but I was nobody on my own account. I was simply his echo,—or supposed to be,—and nothing else.” “Daphne, you forget that this carriage, these horses, our wagons and oxen, and the supplies for this journey are all the product of his bounty.” “They are the product of my jewels, Captain. This outfit is mine; it was bought with my own heart’s blood! I owe nothing to Donald McAlpin.” “Do you think you have dealt justly by your husband?” asked the Captain. There was reproof and impatience in his tone. “I owe him nothing, sir. I am in the same line with Dugs,—a runaway chattel. That is all.” “But Dugs, whose name now is Susannah, did not enter into her bargain voluntarily.” “Neither did I. My mother made the bargain.” “How did you escape, Mrs. McAlpin? And why did you undertake this journey?”