With consciousness memory quickly reproduced what had
occurred. She sprang to the window and peeped through the blinds in
time to see Scoville rise from his bivouac and throw aside his
blanket. With a soldier's promptness he aroused his men and began
giving orders, the tenor of one being that a scouting party should
prepare to go out immediately.
"Oh!" she sighed, "if I had such a brother what a happy girl I might
be! I don't believe I'd ever care to marry."
She was far from being a soft-natured, susceptible girl, and while
Scoville kindled her imagination and had won her trust, she did not
think of him as a lover. Indeed, the very word had become hateful to
her, associating it as she did with her cousin and the idea of
selfish appropriation. More strongly than any slave on the
plantation, she longed for freedom, and the belief that the Union
officer understood her, respecting her rights and feelings, won him
all the favor she was then capable of bestowing upon any one. If he
had employed his brief opportunity in gallantry and love-making she
would have been disgusted.
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