a crown of golden curls, and a
dash of wild hilarity in his bright blue eyes that suggested a Viking, a
royal pirate. He was the handsomest man she had ever seen and when he
spoke it was with a slight and winsome Irish brogue that lent new charm
to a personality already too dangerously gifted.

It seemed to her that Nature had given him all the gifts there were for
man; and he was even better furnished than she perceived, for he had
youth, health, happy moods, magnetic power in face and voice, courage,
and the gift of speech. And yet, with all these unmeasured blessings was
conjoined a bane. To be possessed of the wild, erratic spirit of the
roving, singing Celt, to be driven to all ill-judged extremities, to be
lashed by passion, anger, and remorse, to be the battle ground of this
wild spirit and its strong rival, the calm and steadfast spirit of the
North--that was a spiritual destiny not to be discerned in a first
meeting; but Belle, keen and understanding, was to discover it very
soon.

Belle Boyd was an only child. Her father was a well-to-do trader; he had
had just enough schooling to give him a high notion of its value, and he
resolved to equip his child with the best there was in reach. This meant
an Illinois college. She entered at seventeen. Here many vague
aspirations of schoolgirl life took definite shape, and resulted in some
radical changes in her course of studies. Her mother had but one
thought--to prepare Belle for being a good wife to some one. Her views
on many subjects were to be left blank, so that she might at once adopt
those of her prospective husband. Her tentacles alone were well
considered in the maternal method, so that she could cling ivy-like to
her oak, stay up with him or go down with him; but help him to stand
up--no, never and not at all!

But Illinois was seething with a different thought in the late '70's.
There were women who boldly proclaimed that sex and mind had little
bearing on each other; that woman should train herself to be herself,
and to stand on her own feet; that when woman had the business training
of men, the widow and the unmarried woman--half of all women--would no
longer be the easy prey of every kind of sharper. These new teachers
were, of course, made social martyrs, but they sowed the seed and the
crop was coming on. That every woman should prepare herself to stand
alone in the world was the first article in their creed. This
crystallized an old and shapeless t