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.