It was in one of her most lonely moods, soon after the incidents
we have just narrated, that Mollie Ainslie set out on one of her
customary rides. In addition to the depression which was incident
to her own situation, she was also not a little disturbed by the
untoward occurrences affecting those for whom she had labored so
long. She had never speculated much in regard to the future of the
freedmen, because she had considered it as assured. Growing to
womanhood in the glare of patriotic warfare, she had the utmost
faith in her country's honor and power. To her undiscriminating
mind the mere fact that this honor and power were pledged to the
protection and elevation of the negro had been an all-sufficient
guarantee of the accomplishment of that pledge. In fact, to her
mind, it had taken on the reality and certainty of a fact already
accomplished. She had looked forward to their prosperity as an
event not to be doubted. In her view Nimbus and Eliab Hill were
but feeble types of what the race would "in a few brief years"
accomplish for itself. She believed that the prejudice that prevailed
against the autonomy of the colored people would be suppressed,
or prevented from harmful action by the national power, until the
development of the blacks should have shown them to be of such
value in the community that the old-time antipathy would find itself
without food to exist upon longer.
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