life. Women, wine, gambling, and fighting had given me the best of all the
evils they had to offer. Was I now to drop that valorous life, which men
so ardently seek, and was I to take up a browsing, kinelike existence at
Haddon Hall, there to drone away my remaining days in fat'ning, peace, and
quietude? I could not answer my own question, but this I knew: that Sir
George Vernon was held in high esteem by Elizabeth, and I felt that his
house was, perhaps, the only spot in England where my head could safely
lie. I also had other plans concerning Sir George and his household which
I regret to say I imparted to Sir John in the sack-prompted outpouring of
my confidence. The plans of which I shall now speak had been growing in
favor with me for several months previous to my enforced departure from
Scotland, and that event had almost determined me to adopt them. Almost, I
say, for when I approached Haddon Hall I wavered in my resolution.

At the time when I had last visited Sir George at Haddon, his daughter
Dorothy--Sir George called her Doll--was a slipshod girl of twelve. She
was exceedingly plain, and gave promise of always so remaining. Sir
George, who had no son, was anxious that his vast estates should remain
in the Vernon name. He had upon the occasion of my last visit intimated to
me that when Doll should become old enough to marry, and I, perchance, had
had my fill of knocking about the world, a marriage might be brought about
between us which would enable him to leave his estates to his daughter and
still to retain the much-loved Vernon name for his descendants.

Owing to Doll's rusty red hair, slim shanks, and freckled face, the
proposition had not struck me with favor, yet to please Sir George I had
feigned acquiescence, and had said that when the time should come, we
would talk it over. Before my flight from Scotland I had often thought of
Sir George's proposition made six or seven years before. My love for Mary
Stuart had dimmed the light of other beauties in my eyes, and I had never