I

Introduction
Without a doubt, it was the hottest day in July.
It was Rebecca's good fortune that she and Louisa were engaged in lively conversation at the hat shop on Perry Street, else it would have been their lot to trudge, fabric-sotten and sun-weakened, the winding gravel path home to Kerrington. Louisa, the less pretty one (and therefore the one endowed with the wit and cleverness of the family), was distinctly aware of this happy providence and assumed, as the elder sister must, the responsibility to perpetuate the conversation, for as long as was necessary to bid the sun adieu; only then would she allow herself or her dear sister to entertain the faintest thought of any homeward embarkment. Also, she had asthma.
The henceforth unnamed conversant was none other than the handsome Berkeley Shawhannock and his equally appealing friend, Colonel Jaffrey Winslough, the girls' cousin. The henceforth unrevealed subject of the thrilling conversation - which was punctuated here and there with angelic peals of Rebecca's laughter and less-angelic peals of her sister's - was unstable.
"You should not have said so," Jaffrey was saying to the blonde-locked Rebecca with a hearty laugh; "you have spoiled it; I should never have guessed Sir Thornswall was capable of such tomfoolery!"
"Come now! I find that difficult to believe," Louisa interjected with a smile. "I should have thought of anyone you, having been his apprentice not yet five years ago, would have suspected him first!"
"Dear cousin," Jaffrey replied solemnly, "I only recall being severely reprimanded by a most austere trademaster. I do not dwell often on those sad months, slaving away in Sir Thornswall's stables."
He struck a tragic expression, so comically that all present had to release a small rivulet of laughter. His description of Sir Thornswall as severe, as well, struck a merry chord amongst all those present, who knew the Stablemaster to be a most generous and amiable old drunkard.
"Why, Jaffrey, how could you forget? That was the summer we met," Berkeley remarked with a wink. "Indeed, those stables hold more than the finest horses in Freemanor County; why, the very smell of my childhood lingers in those oaken walls."
The friends laughed again at the metaphor. Yet upon careful consideration one might have marked the darker shadow lurking behind the joy that now twinkled in Berkeley's eyes. Alas! for it is an inescapable truth, that with every beam of light cast upon the land there is a shadow that springs forth. Such truths flow in the veins of life -- especially in the life of any successful romantic drama.
Rebecca said starrily:
"Oh! I love horses. You must come and see Papa's newest; he's had it just a week. It is the most delicate gray thing you ever saw. I have named him 'Gloria.'"
The conversation commenced in much the same manner, until Mr. Barney Porter at last sent the giggling friends on their way from his stoop with a good-natured slew of curses.