'
"It was not to be as he planned, Dick, but you see I have had the
first chance, and it is well it was so, for no one can say how matters
would have turned out, if I had not been on the spot. Do you know,
Dick, I felt that when you rescued me from slavery, you became somehow
straightway my lord and master. As you carried me that night before
you, I said to myself I should always be your little slave; and you
see, it has come quite true."
"I don't know about that, Annie. We are in England now, and there are
no slaves. You will be the mistress now, and I your devoted servant."
"It will be as I say, Dick," she said tenderly. "I feel that, to the
end of my life, I shall remain your willing slave."
There was nothing to prevent an early marriage. It was settled that
Captain and Mrs. Holland should retain the house, which indeed they
could well afford to do, and that Dick and Annie should reside there
whenever they were in town, but that, as a rule, they would live at
the estate her father had purchased, near Plymouth. Their means were
ample, for during the eight years he was in the Service, Dick's 12,000
pounds had, as his father had predicted, doubled itself; and Annie's
fortune was at least as large as his own.
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