anch. They possessed a
common interest and spent much time together. Strange that the same fate
which had overtaken him was now threatening her! Those who deny a fixed
destiny and can therefore afford to ignore the laughter of the gods, may
answer with some assurance that the lives of most people, especially the
marked ones, are tragic--perhaps. But why had Colonel Van Ashton, the
bon-vivant and habitue of clubs, the adored of pretty young women and
confidant of duennas, taken the one road which led to the wilderness
when it is well known that all roads lead to Rome, especially when the
Colonel had about as much interest in his present surroundings as a
polar bear might reasonably expect to find on the equator? Possibly it
was for the same reason that the Colonel also watched with increasing
alarm the sudden and growing interest which his daughter began to take
in the man he detested most on earth.

Reveal the cause, the hidden well-spring of destiny, and the effect may
be predicted with comparative accuracy. Can the lamb lie down with the
lion? Were there ever substantial grounds for the assertion, or was it
only metaphor--mere poetical allusion? The world has been on the _qui
vive_ for the fulfillment of prophecy ever since the expulsion of our
common ancestry from Eden. The actual motives and reasons which underlie
the workings of destiny are usually about as clear as those which bereft
Samson of his locks or left the lone figure of Marius seated amid the
ruins of Carthage. And yet, even in the face of time-worn contradictions
apparent to the most superficial and credulously minded, pretty,
distracting Bessie Van Ashton had begun to cast her eyes in the
direction of Dick Yankton, the handsome, open-handed, devil-may-care son
of nature who regarded the world of fashion to which she belonged with
about as much concern as he did the dust on his boots.

Possibly _ennui_ prompted this willful bit of womanhood to make a
plaything of that picturesque child of nature, just as loneliness caused
him to open his eyes to the existence of that, which in the logical and
ordinary course of events, he would have entirely overlooked. But since
life is made up almost entirely of contraries, it is not so much with
reasons that we have to deal as with facts--things as they are. Clothe
human nature in whatever garb you like, at heart it remains the same.
Time and place and condition make little difference; the real man within
is sure to