Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell Page B

residence, and a foreigner. No one knew anything about his family. While the society of up-country Georgia was not so impregnable as that of the Coast aristocrats,no family wanted a daughter to wed a man about whose grandfather nothing was known.
    Gerald knew that despite the genuine liking of the County men with whom he hunted, drank and talked politics there was hardly one whose daughter he could marry. And he did not intend to have it gossiped about over supper tables that this, that or the other father had regretfully refused to let Gerald O’Hara pay court to his daughter. This knowledge did not make Gerald feel inferior to his neighbors. Nothing could ever make Gerald feel that he was inferior in any way to anyone. It was merely a quaint custom of the County that daughters only married into families who had lived in the South much longer than twenty-two years, had owned land and slaves and been addicted only to the fashionable vices during that time.
    â€œPack up. We’re going to Savannah,” he told Pork. “And if I hear you say ‘Whist!’ or ‘Faith!’ but once, it’s selling you I’ll be doing, for they are words I seldom use meself.”
    James and Andrew might have some advice to offer on this subject of marriage, and there might be daughters among their old friends who would both meet his requirements and find him acceptable as a husband. James and Andrew listened to his story patiently but they gave him little encouragement. They had no Savannah relatives to whom they might look for assistance, for they had been married when they came to America. And the daughters of their old friends had long since married and were raising small children of their own.
    â€œYou’re not a rich man and you haven’t a great family,” said James.
    â€œI’ve made me money and I can make a great family. And I won’t be marrying just anyone.”
    â€œYou fly high,” observed Andrew, dryly.
    But they did their best for Gerald. James and Andrew were old men and they stood well in Savannah. They had many friends, and for a month they carried Gerald from home to home, to suppers, dances and picnics.
    â€œThere’s only one who takes me eye,” Gerald said finally. “And she not even born when I landed here.”
    â€œAnd who is it takes your eye?”
    â€œMiss Ellen Robillard,” said Gerald, trying to speak casually, for the slightly tilting dark eyes of Ellen Robillard had taken more than his eye. Despite a mystifying listlessness of manner, so strange in a girl of fifteen, she charmed him. Moreover, there was a haunting look of despair about her that went to his heart and made him more gentle with her than he had ever been with any person in all the world.
    â€œAnd you old enough to be her father!”
    â€œAnd me in me prime!” cried Gerald, stung.
    James spoke quietly.
    â€œJerry, there’s no girl in Savannah you’d have less chance of marrying. Her father is a Robillard, and those French are proud as Lucifer. And her mother—God rest her soul—was a very great lady.”
    â€œI care not,” said Gerald heatedly. “Besides, her mother is dead, and old man Robillard likes me.”
    â€œAs a man, yes, but as a son-in-law, no.”
    â€œThe girl wouldn’t have you anyway,” interposed Andrew. “She’s been in love with that wild buck of a cousin of hers, Philippe Robillard, for a year now, despite her family being at her morning and night to give him up.”
    â€œHe’s been gone to Louisiana this month now,” said Gerald.
    â€œAnd how do you know?”
    â€œI know,” answered Gerald, who did not care to disclose that Pork had supplied this valuable bit of information, or that Philippe had departed for the West at the express desire of his family. “And I do not think she’s been so much in love with him that she won’t forget him. Fifteen is too young to