CLEOPATRA 



RAWDON MERRYWEATHER is 

 one of those men that horses, dogs, 

 and children are always making a fuss 

 over. The one are continually lick- 

 ing his hands or the other sitting in his lap from 

 morning until night so that if one knows Merry- 

 weather as well as I do, there is nothing surprising 

 in coming suddenly upon him, as I often have, 

 sitting in the chair before the fire, with Gypsy 

 Maid and her latest litter of eight tiny fox hounds 

 yelping nearby, and reading aloud to somebody or 

 other's brood of six children, draped all over him 

 like presents on a Christmas tree. But the grown- 

 ups like him, too. The men worship him, and 

 their wives assume a motherly attitude and affect 

 to regard him as a brand to be plucked from the 

 burning. 



Merryweather is tall, over six feet, with rather 

 stooping, remarkably broad shoulders and long, 

 thin riding legs, slightly bowed from years spent 

 in the saddle. He has a keen, aquiline face, his 

 skin weather-beaten to a red bronze and as tough 



