The scourge I could endure.

Have I not felt it already?
Do I not bear its scars even now, and glory in them; for they were won by speaking as a woman should speak?
And even the fire ?--Have not women been martyrs already?
and could not I be one?
Might not my torments madden a people into manhood, and my name become a war-cry in the sacred fight?
And yet, oh my friend, life is sweet!--and my little day has been so dark and gloomy!--may I not have one hour's sunshine, ere youth and vigour are gone, and my swift-vanishing Southern womanhood wrinkles itself up into despised old age?
Oh, counsel me,--help me, my friend, my preserver, my true master now, so brave, so wise, so all-knowing; under whose mask of cynicism lies hid (have I not cause to know it ?) the heart of a hero.
"MARIE" If Miss Heale could have watched Tom's face as he read, much more could she have heard his words as he finished, all jealousy would have passed from her mind: for as he read, the cynical smile grew sharper and sharper, forming a fit prelude for the "Little fool!" which was his only comment.
"I thought you would have fallen in love with some honest farmer years ago: but a martyr you shan't be, even if I have to send for you hither; though how to get you bread to eat I don't know.

However, you have been reading your book, it seems,--clever enough you always were, and too clever; so you could go out as governess, or something.

Why, here's a postscript dated three months afterwards! Ah, I see; this letter was written last July, in answer to my Australian one.

What's the meaning of this ?" And he began reading again.
"I wrote so far; but I had not the heart to send it: it was so full of repinings.