The Portuguese, Italians, and Turks are darker than
the Indian if anything; Spaniards and Greeks about the same."
"And do they intermarry?"
"I guess they do," said I; "the difference of language only stops
them,--for it's hard to make love when you can't understand each
other,--but colour never."
"Is that now really true?" she said; "for I am ignorant of the world."
"True as preachin'," said I, "and as plain as poverty."
She paused awhile, and said slowly:
"Well, I suppose if all the world says and does differently, I must be
wrong, for I am unacquainted with everything but my own feelings; and
my mother taught me this, and bade me never to trust a white man. I am
glad I was wrong, for if I feel I am right, I am sure I shall be
happy."
"Well," sais I, "I am sure you will be so, and this is just the place,
above all others in the world, that will suit you, and make you so.
Now," sais I, "Jessie, I will tell you a story;" and I told her the
whole tale of Pocahontas; how she saved Captain Smith's life in the
early settlement of Virginia, and afterwards married Mr Rolfe, and
visited the court of England, where all the nobles sought her society.
And then I gave her all the particulars of her life, illness, and
death, and informed her that her son, who stood in the same
relationship to the whites as she did, became a wealthy planter in
Virginia, and that one of his descendants, lately deceased, was one of
the most eloquent as well as one of the most distinguished men in the
United States.
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