y for these
latter days. Its appearance, however, does not call for any extended
description; assuredly, it was not imposing. A heterogeneous jumble of
low, half-timbered houses and mud-plastered hovels; dirty, unpaved
streets, a mean-looking market-place, where the shrill clamor of
huckstering never seemed to cease; some pretentious-looking public
buildings, with stuccoed fronts; outside of all, the inevitable earth
rampart, topped by a palisade and pierced by sally-ports at the cardinal
points--such was Croye, the principal city of this western hemisphere in
the year 2015, or ninety since the Great Change.

Constans frowned as he gazed upon this unlovely picture. Yet he
determined that he would find something of good in it, and as though
answering his thought, the sun reappeared at that very moment from
behind a passing cloud, its rays lighting up the red tiling used as
roofing in the houses of the better class--the one note of cheerful
color among these dingy browns and grays. It was an omen, and he
accepted it as such.

It was to one of these red-topped mansions that Constans finally found
his way, after experiencing several rebuffs from churlish citizens of
whom he had ventured to inquire for the whereabouts of his uncle. Now,
as he laid his hand upon the knocker, he was conscious that the feeling
of despondency had again fallen upon him; he recalled the old story of
Messer Hugolin's bitter opposition to the marriage of his sister Rayne
and Gavan of the keep, of how he had refused to attend the wedding and
had sent no gift. Since then there had been no real intimacy between the
families, although the breach had been outwardly healed and formal
civilities infrequently passed. A poor prospect, it would seem, for the
success of Constans's appeal. But blood is blood, and there was
literally no one else to whom he could turn in this his extremity. He
let the knocker fall.

Messer Hugolin, a stout man, with crafty lines creased in his broad
face, received his nephew with nominal cordiality and listened
attentively to his story. But he was not over-prompt with either advice
or offer of assistance, and Constans, with a sore heart, finally rose to
go.

"Don't be in a hurry," said his uncle, coolly. "Let me think this over
again. After all, we are of the same stock, although your father always
flouted me for a mean-spirited churl. Poor Gavan, we may forgive him
now."

After another period of cogitation and incidental