tred for heresy. Heretics, as a rule, were low-born persons,
vulgarly moral, and as I had always thought, despisedly hypocritical.
Madge Stanley, however, was a Protestant, and that fact shook the
structure of my old mistakes to its foundation, and left me religionless.

After the Persian merchant had packed his bales and departed, Dorothy and
Lady Crawford joined Madge and me near the fireplace. Soon Dorothy went
over to the window and stood there gazing into the courtyard. After a few
minutes Lady Crawford said, "Dorothy, had we not better order Dawson to
bring out the horses and coach?" Will Dawson was Sir George's forester.
Lady Crawford repeated her question, but Dorothy was too intently watching
the scene in the courtyard to hear. I went over to her, and looking out at
the window discovered the object of Dorothy's rapt attention. There is no
need for me to tell you who it was. Irony, as you know, and as I had
learned, was harmless against this thick-skinned nymph. Of course I had no
authority to scold her, so I laughed. The object of Dorothy's attention
was about to mount his horse. He was drawing on his gauntleted gloves and
held between his teeth a cigarro. He certainly presented a handsome figure
for the eyes of an ardent girl to rest upon while he stood beneath the
window, clothed in a fashionable Paris-made suit of brown, doublet,
trunks, and hose. His high-topped boots were polished till they shone, and
his broad-rimmed hat, of soft beaver, was surmounted by a flowing plume.
Even I, who had no especial taste nor love for masculine beauty, felt my
sense of the beautiful strongly moved by the attractive picture my
new-found friend presented. His dress, manner, and bearing, polished by
the friction of life at a luxurious court, must have appeared god-like to
Dorothy. She had never travelled farther from home than Buxton and
Derby-town, and had met only the half-rustic men belonging to the
surrounding gentry and nobility of Derbyshire, Nottingham, and Stafford.
She had met but few even of them, and their lives had been spent chiefly
in drinking, hunting, and gambling--accomplishments that do not fine down
the texture of a man's nature or fit him for a lady's bower. Sir John
Manners was a revelation to Dorothy; and she, poor girl, was bewildered
and bewitched by him.

When John had mounted and was moving away, he looked up to the window
where Dorothy stood, and a light came to her eyes and a smile to her face
whi