CHAPTER II.
MARRIAGE.
My Betrothal.-- Love Matches and Marriages of Convenience.-- Some new Ideas picked up from my Schoolmates.-- A new Lover appears upon the Field.-- I Figure as a Rival to a Friend.-- Love's Young Dream.-- A new Way of popping the Question.-- A Clandestine Marriage.-- Displeasure of my Family.-- Life as the Wife of an Army Officer.-- The Mormon Expedition.-- Birth of my first Child, and Reconciliation with my Family.-- Commencement of the War between the North and South.-- Death of my Children.-- Resignation of my Husband from the Army.-- My Determination to take Part in the coming Conflict as a Soldier.-- Opposition of my Husband to my Schemes.
SOME time previous to my admission to the Sisters' school, I was betrothed to a young Spaniard, Raphael R., in accordance with plans which my relatives had formed with regard to me, and without any action on my part. Indeed, my consent was not asked, my parents, thinking that they were much better qualified to arrange a suitable alliance than I was, and that, provided other things were satisfactory, love was something of minor importance, that could very well be left to take care of itself. They were mistaken, however, as other parents have been in similar cases, for, like a good many girls, as soon as I was old enough to do much thinking for myself, I had no difficulty in coming to the conclusion that the choice of a husband was something I ought to have a voice in.
I had been educated under very old-fashioned ideas with regard to the duties which children owe to their parents,
for, among my father's country people, children, even when they have arrived at years of discretion, are supposed to be under the authority of their father and mother, and marriages for love, having their origin in a spontaneous affection of young people for each other, are very rare. It is the custom in Spain,
