our assistance. Self-willed, arrogant creatures are those same fates, but
they save us a deal of trouble by assuming our responsibilities.




CHAPTER II

THE IRON, THE SEED, THE CLOUD, AND THE RAIN


The morning following my meeting with Manners, he and I made an early
start. An hour before noon we rode into the town of Rowsley and halted at
The Peacock for dinner.

When we entered the courtyard of the inn we saw three ladies warmly
wrapped in rich furs leave a ponderous coach and walk to the inn door,
which they entered. One of them was an elderly lady whom I recognized as
my cousin, Lady Dorothy Crawford, sister to Sir George Vernon. The second
was a tall, beautiful girl, with an exquisite ivory-like complexion and a
wonderful crown of fluffy red hair which encircled her head like a halo of
sunlit glory. I could compare its wondrous lustre to no color save that of
molten gold deeply alloyed with copper. But that comparison tells you
nothing. I can find no simile with which to describe the beauties of its
shades and tints. It was red, but it also was golden, as if the enamoured
sun had gilded every hair with its radiance. In all my life I had never
seen anything so beautiful as this tall girl's hair. Still, it was the
Vernon red. My cousin, Sir George, and many Vernons had hair of the same
color. Yet the girl's hair differed from all other I had ever seen. It had
a light and a lustre of its own which was as distinct from the ordinary