any girl
could want. Yes, I remember that time. I was going to a little party and
crossing a meadow to shorten the walk, and Squire Percival had been out
with his gun, and he laid it down and ran to help me over the stile. A
handsome young fellow he was then as ever stepped in shoe leather."

"And he must have loved you dearly. He would sit hour after hour telling
Ruth and me how bright you were, and how all the young beaux around
Monk-Rawdon adored you."

"Nonsense! Nonsense! I had beaux to be sure. What pretty girl hasn't?"

"And he said his brother Edward won you because he was most worthy of
your love."

"Well, now, I chose Edward Rawdon because he was willing to come to
America. I longed to get away from Monk-Rawdon. I was faint and weary
with the whole stupid place. And the idea of living a free and equal
life, and not caring what lords and squires and their proud ladies said
or did, pleased me wonderfully. We read about Niagara and the great
prairies and the new bright cities, and Edward and I resolved to
make our home there. Your grandfather wasn't a man to like being 'the
Squire's brother.' He could stand alone."

"Are you glad you came to America?"

"Never sorry a minute for it. Ten years in New York is worth fifty years
in Monk-Rawdon, or Rawdon Court either."

"Squire Percival was very fond of me. He thought I resembled you,
grandmother, but he never admitted I was as handsome as you were."

"Well, Ethel dear, you are handsome enough for the kind of men you'll
pick up in this generation--most of them bald at thirty, wearing
spectacles at twenty or earlier, and in spite of the fuss they make
about athletics breaking all to nervous bits about fifty."

"Grandmother, that is pure slander. I know some very fine young men,
handsome and athletic both."

"Beauty is a matter of taste, and as to their athletics, they can run
a mile with a blacksmith, but when the thermometer rises to eighty-five
degrees it knocks them all to pieces. They sit fanning themselves like
schoolgirls, and call for juleps and ice-water. I've got eyes yet, my
dear. Squire Percival was a different kind of man; he could follow the
hounds all day and dance all night. The hunt had not a rider like
him; he balked at neither hedge, gate, nor water; a right gallant,
courageous, honorable, affectionate gentleman as ever Yorkshire bred,
and she's bred lots of superfine ones. What ever made him get into such
a mess with his estate? Your gra