If I persisted, he must will his property elsewhere. The
Blake estate should never descend with the seal of his approbation to
a race of probable imbeciles.
"Nor was this enough. He not only robbed me of the woman I loved, but
with a clear insight into the future, I presume, insisted upon my
marrying some one else of respectability and worth before he died.
'Anyone whose appearance will do you credit and whose virtue is beyond
reproach,' said he. 'I don't ask her to be rich or even the offspring
of one of our old families. Let her be good and pure and of no
connection to us, and I will bless her and you with my dying breath.'
"The idea had seized upon him with great force, and I soon saw he was
not to be shaken out of it. To all my objections he returned but the
one word,
"'I don't restrict your choice and I give you a month in which to make
it. If at the end of that time you cannot bring your bride to my
bedside, I must look around for an heir who will not thwart my dying
wishes.'"
"A month! I surveyed the fashionable belles that nightly thronged the
parlors of my friends and felt my heart sink within me. Take one of
them for my wife, loving another woman? Impossible. Women like
these demanded something in return for the honor they conferred upon a
man by marrying him.
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