In the few points of contact which she had with them personally,
she had found them pleasant. In the few relations which they held
toward the colored people, and toward her as their friend, she had
found them brutal and hateful beyond her power to conceive. Then,
her life had been with those for whom she labored, so far as it
was in or of the South at all. They had been the objects of her
thought, her interest, and her care. Their wrongs had entered into
her life, and had been the motive of her removal to the West. Out
of these conditions, by a curious evolution, had grown a new life,
which she vainly tried to graft upon the old without apparent
disjointure.
Now, by kinship and by marriage, she belonged to one of the most
respectable families of the region. It was true that Hesden. had
sullied his family name by becoming a Radical; but as he had never
sought official position, nor taken any active part in enforcing or
promulgating the opinions which he held; had, in fact, identified
himself with the party of odious principles only for the protection
of the victims of persecution or the assertion of the rights of
the weak--he was regarded with much more toleration and forbearance
than would otherwise have been displayed toward him.
In addition to this, extravagant rumors came into the good county
of Horsford respecting the wealth which Mollie Ainslie had acquired,
and of the pluck and enterprise which she had displayed in the far
West.
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