a good one, for I fear the affection you are seeking can never arise
in my heart enough to satisfy you. Gratitude and respect are always
here, my son, but love has been a stranger to me these many years. I
wish you to marry while I live, and be happy in some good woman's
affection. I may die and you may not become my heir! There is the
doctor's beautiful daughter; she has my decided approval!"

"If it is your wish, father, I will marry."

The day Perry Whaley was admitted to the bar of Kent County on motion
of his father, he stopped with his pair of horses at Doctor Voss's
house, and asked Miss Marion to take a drive. She was a peerless
brunette, whose dark brown curls taking the light upon their
luxuriance seemed the rippling of water from the large amber wells of
her eyes. In childhood she had looked with admiration on his straight,
trim figure and manly courtesy, and hoped that she might find favor in
his sight. For this she had put by the scant opportunities in a small,
old, unvisited town, to be wedded to her equals, and the whispered
imputation that there was a taint in Perry Whaley's blood made no
impression upon her wishes. Her younger sisters were gone before her,
but true to the impetuous tendencies of her childhood she waited for
Perry, indulging the dream that she was destined to be his wife.

The happy, supreme opportunity had come. They took the road over the
river drawbridge into another county; the frost was out of the ground,
and the loamy road invited the horses to their speed until the breath
of spring raised in Marion's cheeks the color that dressed the budding
peach orchards which spread over the whole landscape, as if Nature was
in maternity and her rosy breasts were full of milk.