They spoke of him at the county fairs as the young squire.

When in his happiest moods he could be almost a boy, and he still had something of old-fashioned boyish reverence for his elders.

But of late there had grown up a great care within his breast,--a care which does not often, perhaps in these days bear so heavily on men's hearts as it used to do.

He had asked his cousin to marry him,--having assured himself with certainty that he did love her better than any other woman,--and she had declined.

She had refused him more than once, and he believed her implicitly when she told him that she could not love him.