They are despised by both breeds;"
and she shook her head, as if she scorned and loathed herself, and
burst into a passionate flood of tears.
"Jessie," said I, and I paused a moment, for I wanted to give her a
homoeopathic dose of common sense--and those little wee doses work
like charms, that's a fact. "Jessie," says I, and I smiled, for I
wanted her to shake off those voluntary trammels. "Jessie, the doctor
ain't quite quite tame, and you ain't quite wild. You are both six of
one, and half-a-dozen of the other, and just about as like as two
peas."
Well it's astonishing what that little sentence did. An ounce of
essence is worth a gallon of fluid. A wise saw is more valuable than a
whole book, and a plain truth is better than an argument. She had no
answer for that. She had been reasoning, without knowing it, as if in
fact she had been in reality an Indian. She had imbibed in childhood
the feelings of her mother, who had taken the first step and repented
it--of one who had deserted, but had not been adopted--who became an
exile and remained an alien--who had bartered her birthright for
degradation and death. It is natural that regret for the past and
despair for the future should have been the burden of the mournful
ditties of such a woman; that she who had mated without love, and
lived without affection, the slave, the drudge, but not the wife or
companion of her master, should die with imprecations on her lips for
a race who were the natural foes of her people, and who had reduced
her to be an object of scorn and contempt to both.
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