'
"Imagine if you can the effect of this speech upon me. I assure you I
was composed enough outwardly, if not inwardly, ere she ended her
sentence. Having finished, I said, 'Pardon me, Miss Ercildoune, for any
words which may have offended your dignity. I will confine myself for
the rest of our interview to your own rules!'
"'It is well,' she responded. I had spoken satirically, and expected to
see her shrink under it, but she answered with perfect coolness and
_sang froid_. I continued, 'You will not deny that you are a negro, at
least a mulatto.'
"'Pardon me, madam,' she replied; 'my father is a mulatto, my mother was
an Englishwoman. Thus, to give you accurate information upon the
subject, I am a quadroon.'
"'Quadroon be it!' I answered, angrily again, I fear. 'Quadroon,
mulatto, or negro, it is all one. I have no desire to split hairs of
definition. You could not be more obnoxious were you black as Erebus. I
have no farther words to pass upon the past or the present, but
something to say of the future. You hold in your hands a letter--a
love-letter, I am sure--a declaration, as I fear--from my nephew, Mr.
Surrey. You will oblige me by at once sitting down, writing a peremptory
and unqualified refusal to his proposal, if he has made you one,--a
refusal that will admit of no hope and no double interpretation,--and
give it into my keeping before I leave this room.
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