The brothers began an unequal struggle with the world as poor men with dependent families.
The elder one suicided within a decade, and the younger dragged the weary chain of life until he was sixty; then death released him.
But along the path of their descendants each decade was marked by a suicide in the morose family, and they decreased in numbers until the unfortunate line had almost died out. Only Floy was left now—fairest and most unfortunate of her race.
The shadows of fate had indeed fallen most heavily on that little golden head.
Bereaved of all who loved her, bound in the cruel toils of poverty, sundered from her lover, in hiding from relentless foes—alas, poor little Floy!
“In sorrow did your life begin,
Dark lines of fate have hedged it in;
Yet is your face as bright and fair
As if the shadow of black care
Threw over it no dismal gloom—