Set a thousand guards on her,
Love will find out the way.

ANON.


If love cannot sharpen the faculties of mankind; if it cannot quicken
the perceptions; if it has not the power to make the deaf hear,
the blind see, the lame walk--at least, sufficient for its own
success--then, indeed--! But it is possessed of all these virtues, and
more. If necessity be the mother of invention, then is love the mother
of both; and surely the most ingenious devices and the cleverest
productions had been connected with this subtle passion.

Divers and many were the plans which Manners devised to meet his
beloved Dorothy again, but the success he so richly merited was tardy
in coming, and one after another his schemes were frustrated, until
success seemed to have receded from his grasp for ever.

Dorothy, in fact, was too carefully watched to permit of her meeting
her lover easily, and she was kept too busy at the tapestry frame
to allow her much time for writing to him had she been so disposed.
Whenever she went out she was well attended, and for a long time
Manners was fain to content himself with an occasional glimpse of
her pale face as she rode by, or by sending love-notes and receiving
messages back by the kindly aid of the faithful Lettice.

Still he persevered, and was rarely absent from the trysting place at
the appointed time, for Dorothy might come on any night, and when she
came he was determined she should find him there. But she never came.