ould become old enough to marry, and I, perchance, had
had my fill of knocking about the world, a marriage might be brought about
between us which would enable him to leave his estates to his daughter and
still to retain the much-loved Vernon name for his descendants.

Owing to Doll's rusty red hair, slim shanks, and freckled face, the
proposition had not struck me with favor, yet to please Sir George I had
feigned acquiescence, and had said that when the time should come, we
would talk it over. Before my flight from Scotland I had often thought of
Sir George's proposition made six or seven years before. My love for Mary
Stuart had dimmed the light of other beauties in my eyes, and I had never
married. For many months before my flight, however, I had not been
permitted to bask in the light of Mary's smiles to the extent of my
wishes. Younger men, among them Darnley, who was but eighteen years of
age, were preferred to me, and I had begun to consider the advisability of
an orderly retreat from the Scottish court before my lustre should be
entirely dimmed. It is said that a man is young so long as he is strong,
and I was strong as in the days of my youth. My cheeks were fresh, my eyes
were bright, and my hair was red as when I was twenty, and without a
thread of gray. Stills my temperament was more exacting and serious, and
the thought of becoming settled for life, or rather for old age and death,
was growing in favor with me. With that thought came always a suggestion
of slim, freckled Dorothy and Sir George's offer. She held out to me
wealth and position, a peaceful home for my old age, and a grave with a
pompous, pious epitaph at Bakewell church, in death.

When I was compelled to leave Scotland, circumstances forced me to a
decision, and my resolution was quickly taken. I would go to Derbyshire
and would marry Dorothy. I did not expect ever again to feel great love
for a woman. The fuse, I thought, had burned out when I loved Mary Stuart.
One woman, I believed, was like another to me, and Dorothy would answer as
well as any for my wife. I could and would be kind to her, and that alone
in time would make me fond. It is true, my affection would be of a fashion
more comfortable than exciting; but who, having passed his galloping
youth, will contemn the joys that come from making others happy? I believe
there is no person, past the age of forty, at all given to pondering the
whys of life, who will gainsay that the joy we g