friends and followers, and it was my pride to surpass them all. I
liked one better than another, of course, but was always as ready
for a new conquest as that old fool, 'Alexander the Little,'
who ran over the world and especially himself. What do you think,
papa? Shall I ever see one who will make all the others appear as
nothing? Or, would it be nobler to devote myself to a true, fine
man, like Mr. Lane, no matter how I felt?"

"God forbid! You had better stay at your mother's side till you
are as old and wrinkled as Time himself."

"I am honestly glad to hear you say so. But what am I to do? Sooner
or later I shall have to refuse Mr. Lane, and others too."

"Refuse them, then. He would be less than a man who would ask a
girl to sacrifice herself for him. No, my dear, the most inalienable
right of your womanhood is to love freely and give yourself where
you love. This right is one of the issues of this war,--that the
poorest woman in this land may choose her own mate. Slavery is the
corner-stone of the Confederacy, wherein millions of women can be
given according to the will of masters. Should the South triumph,
phases of the Old-World despotism would creep in with certainly,
and in the end we should have alliances, not marriages, as is the
case so generally abroad. Now if a white American girl does not
make her own choice she is a weak fool. The law and public sentiment
protect her. If she will not choose wisely, she must suffer the
consequences, and only under the impulse of love can a true choice
be made. A girl must be sadly deficient in sense if she loves a weak,
bad, disreputable man, or a vulgar, ignorant one. Such mesalliances
are more in seeming than in reality, for the girl herself is usually