Chapter I: Preface

This story is exactly what it purports to be, a romance, as the reader who cares to follow the Highway with the Hero and Heroine whose adventures thereon are hereafter set forth will see. It makes no pretence at being an historical novel, and yet, perhaps, it is only fair to the Manes of Lady Grizel Ogilby to point out that she herself once played a dashing rôle, somewhat like that attributed to Lady Katharine Clanranald, in a similar emergency in Scottish history and at a similar crisis in the family fortunes. I am just a little tired, for the nonce, of the problem story, and I have turned to this with a keen relish in which I humbly trust the reader will share. Variety is the life of literature: if I confined myself to one kind of books, or to one kind of sermons, I should be a dead author and a dead preacher as well.

The relaxations of life are not to be found in idleness, but in doing things that are different. It is a far cry from _The Island of Regeneration_ to _The Better Man_ and from _The Better Man_ to _Hearts and the Highway_. And it will be a farther cry, perhaps, to the next story! Here's hoping that each may find a place and welcome in some gracious reader's heart.

CYRUS TOWNSEND BRADY.

ST. GEORGE'S RECTORY, KANSAS CITY, Mo.,
New Year's Day, 1911.

CONTENTS

BOOK I

THE WINNING OF A HUSBAND

_As Set Forth by the Lady of the Quest,
with a Necessary Interlude by the
Gentleman in Person_