As the Frankensteins selected knots of still beauty to immortalize on canvas, so the Hon. William Fletcher selected a scene of exceeding beauty in the midst of which to place his home, and gratify his taste for retirement, where he could look the fairest nature in the face. A dreamy, indolent man of fine intellect, he had struggled for years at the bar with various success, when, through the influence of some friends, he was elevated to the bench, and shortly after, a near relative dying, left him an immense fortune. The judge gave up his judgeship, presented his fine library to a nephew, and, with wife and only child, retired to his U-na-ka farm, to settle down over books and dreams for the remainder of his useless life. He would have certainly accomplished this sleepy purpose, but for the only child—a boy—who acted upon the Hon. Mr. Fletcher like a corn, with the difference that love, not hate, made the young development of himself exceedingly troublesome. The younger Fletcher, humored by the indolent father and fond mother, had every whim gratified, every wish anticipated. When the educated selfishness proposed breaking his neck by riding a colt that seemed unmanageable, the proposition was acceded to by the foolish parents amid earnest protestations, prayers, and loud lamentations. From the time he fell from the table, in a fit of indigestion, having gorged himself with plum-cake, to his nineteenth year, when he discharged a load of small shot from his double-barrel Manton into the back of John, the coachman, and cost his father a large sum to keep his heir out of jail, Dudley Fletcher had his own way—and a bad way it was. Yet Dudley was popular. He had plenty of money, and no care for it. His selfishness was ignorant thoughtlessness, for he did many generous acts—if they cost him little trouble. His hand went to and from his well-filled purse quite easily—and he flung his father’s money from him like a lord.