ive to others is our chief
source of happiness. Why, then, should not a wise man, through purely
selfish motives, begin early to cultivate the gentle art of giving joy?

But the fates were to work out the destinies of Dorothy and myself without
our assistance. Self-willed, arrogant creatures are those same fates, but
they save us a deal of trouble by assuming our responsibilities.

CHAPTER II

THE IRON, THE SEED, THE CLOUD, AND THE RAIN

The morning following my meeting with Manners, he and I made an early
start. An hour before noon we rode into the town of Rowsley and halted at
The Peacock for dinner.

When we entered the courtyard of the inn we saw three ladies warmly
wrapped in rich furs leave a ponderous coach and walk to the inn door,
which they entered. One of them was an elderly lady whom I recognized as
my cousin, Lady Dorothy Crawford, sister to Sir George Vernon. The second
was a tall, beautiful girl, with an exquisite ivory-like complexion and a
wonderful crown of fluffy red hair which encircled her head like a halo of
sunlit glory. I could compare its wondrous lustre to no color save that of
molten gold deeply alloyed with copper. But that comparison tells you
nothing. I can find no simile with which to describe the beauties of its
shades and tints. It was red, but it also was golden, as if the enamoured
sun had gilded every hair with its radiance. In all my life I had never
seen anything so beautiful as this tall girl's hair. Still, it was the
Vernon red. My cousin, Sir George, and many Vernons had hair of the same
color. Yet the girl's hair differed from all other I had ever seen. It had
a light and a lustre of its own which was as distinct from the ordinary
Vernon red, although that is very good and we are proud of it, as the
sheen of gold is from the glitter of brass. I knew by the girl's hair
that she was my cousin, Dorothy Vernon, whom I reluctantly had come to
wed.

I asked myself, "Can this be the plain, freckled girl I knew seven years
ago?" Compared with her beauty even Mary Stuart's was pale as the vapid
moon at dawn. The girl seemed to be the incarnated spirit of universal
life and light, and I had condescendingly come to marry this goddess. I
felt a dash of contemptuous pity for my complacent self.

In my cogitations concerning marriage with Dorothy Vernon, I had not at
all taken into consideration her personal inclination. A girl, after all,
is but the chattel of her father, and