nt to society, and God intended
them for the reproduction of the race, and perhaps they're kept stupid
in their minds so that they will not rebel against their manifest
destiny.

"It's not like this with Mistress Stair! For she has a grasp of things,
and the fearlessness of an unbroken colt, and a mind for the big
thoughts of life, and you and I have led her forward in her conduct.

"In the matter of Danvers she is following out the strongest law that
we know. 'Tis the natural attraction of the sexes--of the young for the
young; but her mind calls for something besides. And 'tis here the duke
appeals to her more. Aye! it's all a difficult business," he concluded,
"and fate will have to settle it after all, as I've said many a time."

One day when the Little Flower was by me with her sewing I put the
matter to her with what deftness I could. Her answers were brief, but
directly aimed at the text. She said in effect that marriage was a
serious affair, and that she had been bred up with so much liberty that
it made the embarking on such an expedition more perilous to her than
to most women. She also set forth that in nearly every other enterprise
in life one might take a preliminary jaunt, and finding the business
little to one's liking, might give it over and start without prejudice
in some other.

"In this one affair alone," she ended, "the one of most moment in all
of our existence, there is no retracing one's steps with honor if it be
found that one has taken the wrong road."

For these reasons she averred it her privilege to look around her with
all the intelligence she had in order to make no mistake, both for
herself and her future husband.

"For I'm thinking," she said, "there would be trouble afoot if I found,
after marriage, the love of which I am capable given over to a man who
was not my husband.

"Besides which," she laughed, "I'm not certain whom I am going to
marry. There's Robert Burns, now," she cried. "How would you like to
have a plowman for a son-in-law, Jock Stair, my daddy O?" and she
started off to the Burnside, singing as she went; which was all I could
get from her on the subject, one way or another.

It was near the end of September that there began the serious trouble
between the duke and Danvers. I was come around from Zachary Twombly's
mill, where I had been to pay the hop-pickers, riding alone through the
Dead Man's Holm, intending to enter the garden by the break in the
south wall.