ow and let in light and air--I
feel as if at last I must _act_!"

"Act, by all means, now and always, when you have a chance," I answered.
"But don't take things too hard, now or ever. Your long confinement
makes you think the world better worth knowing than you are likely to
find it. A man with as good a head and heart as yours has a very ample
world within himself, and I am no believer in art for art, nor in what's
called 'life' for life's sake. Nevertheless, take your plunge, and come
and tell me whether you have found the pearl of wisdom." He frowned a
little, as if he thought my sympathy a trifle meagre. I shook him by the
hand and laughed. "The pearl of wisdom," I cried, "is love; honest love
in the most convenient concentration of experience! I advise you to fall
in love." He gave me no smile in response, but drew from his pocket the
letter of which I have spoken, held it up, and shook it solemnly. "What
is it?" I asked.

"It is my sentence!"

"Not of death, I hope!"

"Of marriage."

"With whom?"

"With a person I don't love."

This was serious. I stopped smiling, and begged him to explain.

"It is the singular part of my story," he said at last. "It will remind
you of an old-fashioned romance. Such as I sit here, talking in this
wild way, and tossing off provocations to destiny, my destiny is settled
and sealed. I am engaged, I am given in marriage. It's a bequest of the
past--the past I had no hand in! The marriage was arranged by my father,
years ago, when I was a boy. The young girl's father was his particular
friend; he was also a widower, and was bringing up his daughter, on his
side, in the same severe seclusion in which I was spending my days. To
this day I am unacquainted with the origin of the bond of union between
our respective progenitors. Mr. Vernor was largely engaged in business,
and I imagine that once upon a time he found himself in a financial
strait and was helped through it by my father's coming forward with a
heavy loan, on which, in his situation, he could offer no security but
his word. Of this my father was quite capable. He was a man of dogmas,
and he was sure to have a rule of life--as clear as if it had been
written out in his beautiful copper-plate hand--adapted to the conduct of
a gentleman toward a friend in pecuniary embarrassment. What is more, he
was sure to adhere to it. Mr. Vernor, I believe, got on his feet, paid
his debt, and vowed my father an