our twilight drives, and the moonlight nights were too chilly to linger
long in the rustic arbors or shady nooks outside. With the peculiar
charm of this season of the year there is always a touch of sadness in
nature, and it seemed doubly so to me, as my engagement was not one of
unmixed joy and satisfaction. Among all conservative families there was
a strong aversion to abolitionists and the whole anti-slavery movement.
Alone with Cousin Gerrit in his library he warned me, in deep, solemn
tones, while strongly eulogizing my lover, that my father would never
consent to my marriage with an abolitionist. He felt in duty bound, as
my engagement had occurred under his roof, to free himself from all
responsibility by giving me a long dissertation on love, friendship,
marriage, and all the pitfalls for the unwary, who, without due
consideration, formed matrimonial relations. The general principles laid
down in this interview did not strike my youthful mind so forcibly as
the suggestion that it was better to announce my engagement by letter
than to wait until I returned home, as thus I might draw the hottest
fire while still in safe harbor, where Cousin Gerrit could help me
defend the weak points in my position. So I lingered at Peterboro to
prolong the dream of happiness and postpone the conflict I feared to
meet.

But the Judge understood the advantage of our position as well as we
did, and wasted no ammunition on us. Being even more indignant at my
cousin than at me, he quietly waited until I returned home, when I
passed through the ordeal of another interview, with another
dissertation on domestic relations from a financial standpoint. These
were two of the most bewildering interviews I ever had. They succeeded
in making me feel that the step I proposed to take was the most
momentous and far-reaching in its consequences of any in this mortal
life. Heretofore my apprehensions had all been of death and eternity;