CHAPTER XXXV.
AT LAST.
It seemed almost as if he had been expected from his appearance being received in so matter-of-fact a way. Yet, he reflected, why should it be otherwise? Aurelie de Roquemaure could scarce know of all that had happened to him of late--above all could not be aware that he had become possessed of the information that she was the kidnapper of Dorine.
He had, however, but little time for reflection since Boussac was by his side, and, when they dismounted from their horses, had followed him into the large sombre hall to which the old servant had led the way. Yet, when the man had gone to seek his mistress, the latter took one more opportunity to plead that he should be gentle with her.
"Remember," he said, "remember, I beseech you, that you have but her brother's word for what you suspect her of; he was a villain, he might have lied in his last moments for some reason--perhaps did not even think those last moments were in truth at hand; might have hoped to escape after all and profit by the lie. Remember! Oh, remember!"
"I will remember," St. Georges said. Then, with one glance at Boussac, he added, "But the villain did not lie _then_!"
The domestic came back, and St. Georges learned that the hour for his explanation, long sought and meditated upon, was at hand. "His mistress would see monsieur," he said. He would conduct him to her.
In the same room where he had first set eyes on Aurelie de Roquemaure he saw her again--the old man ushering him in and then swiftly leaving the room. They were face to face at last! As it had been before, so it was now--her beauty as she rose on his entrance was strikingly apparent, compelled regard. And the four years that had passed since that first meeting had done much to increase, to ripen that beauty; instead of the budding girl it was a stately woman who now met his eyes. And the contrast between them was great, was all to her advantage so far as exterior matters were concerned: he travel-stained, worn, and with now in his long hair some streaks of gray; she fresh and beautiful in the long black lace dress she wore, a rose in her bosom, her hair undisguised by any wig and swept back into a huge knot behind. "How beautiful she is!" he thought, as he gave her one glance, "yet how base and contemptible!"
With a swift movement she came toward him from the further end of the room, her hands extended and her eyes sparkling, exclaiming as she advanced: "You are free! you are free!" But her greeting met with no response from him. Could she have expected it, he wondered? Then he stepped back and coldly said:
"Yes, Mademoiselle de Roquemaure, I am free," while to himself he said: "So she knew that too. That I was trapped! God! That womankind can be so base!"
Staggered at the coldness of his first words, affronted at his refusal to take her outstretched hands, she drew back and looked at him calmly. Then she said, quietly, "I rejoice to know it," and, pausing, looked at him again.
"Mademoiselle de Roquemaure," he said, "I have not ridden here from Paris, from a prison which at one time I scarce thought to leave except for the wheel, to interchange idle compliments. I have come here with one set purpose, to learn what you have done with my child--the child you stole from the Bishop of Lodeve's servant on the morning that your servant gave that man his death wound."
His eyes were intent upon her as he spoke, watching her eagerly. Yet, to his surprise, she neither started nor paled at his accusation. Instead, she said quietly:
"You know that?"
"Yes," he replied; "I know it."
"And your informant was----?"
"Your brother, or half-brother. With his dying words."
"He was slain at La Hogue; ah, yes! you were there! I remember. Was it you who slew him?"
"No; but, pardon me, it is not about Monsieur de Roquemaure that I have come here. The De Roquemaures and I have had enough intercourse." And now he saw that he had touched her, since she grew pale as death. "There will be no need of any further when once my child is restored to me. Mademoiselle, I have come to demand that child of you. Where is she--what have you done with her?"
For answer she advanced to a bell rope, and, pulling it, said to the servant when he appeared, "Send Mademoiselle de Vannes to me."
"Mademoiselle de Vannes!" he exclaimed, "Mademoiselle de Vannes! You call her that--you know----"
"I know."
He raised his hand to his forehead with a gesture of bewilderment, then said, "And you keep her here?"
"She is here, monseigneur," as the door opened once more; "here is your child."
Even as she spoke a bright-haired child ran into the room and, rushing toward Mademoiselle de Roquemaure, caught her by the hands and buried her face in her dress, while she whispered:
"Aurelie, dear sister Aurelie, why do you send for me now when I am so hard at work with Pere Antoine? And who is this stranger? What does he want?"
"Who is this stranger?" At those words St. Georges's heart gave a throb--he said afterward that he thought it would cease to beat--and the room swam round with him. He had found the child of many longings--and he was a stranger! A moment later he heard Aurelie speaking.
"Dorine, this is no stranger. Give him your hand; kiss him."
Reluctantly the child advanced to where he stood, and obeyed her in so far that she held out her hand; but, either from coyness or some other cause, she did not offer to lift up her face for him to kiss. And he, standing there, looking down on her, felt as if his heart would break. Then, overcome by all that was struggling within his bosom, he dropped upon one knee beside the child and drew her toward him, she seeming terrified at his embrace.
"Ah, little one!" he said, "if I tell you how I have longed for this hour, prayed for it to come, surely you will say some word of greeting to me. Dorine, do you not know me? Dorine, Dorine!"
For answer, the child, still seeming frightened, drew further away from him and whispered that she did not know him, that she desired to go to Aurelie.
"You love her?" he whispered, too, for now his voice seemed to be failing him--"you love her? You are happy with her? I hoped you would have come with me----"
"With you!"--and now the tears stood in the child's eyes as she shrank still further from him--"and leave Aurelie?"
"Why not?" he asked almost fiercely, his despair driving him nearly to distraction. "Why not? Who is she? What share has she in you? You are mine, mine, mine! O child, I am your father!" And suddenly overwrought by his emotions, by the broken hopes he had cherished, the vanishing of the future to which he had looked forward, he sprang to his feet and turned to Mademoiselle de Roquemaure. "I see it all," he said; "understand all. Your brother uttered the truth at last. You stole my child because she stood in your way; you won her love afterward because----"
"Stop!" exclaimed Aurelie de Roquemaure, and as she spoke she drew herself to her full height and confronted him, while the child, trembling by her side, could not understand why her sister had changed so. "Stop and hear the truth since you force me to tell it. I stole your child because in that way alone could her life be saved, her safety at least be assured. My brother would--God forgive him!--have hidden her away forever; even then, as I learned afterward, the bishop's servant had stolen her from the inn in the city and was hastening to meet him. There was no time to lose; it was that man's life or hers, and--and--I acted by my mother's orders. Now, Monseigneur le Duc----"
But he whom she addressed thus had fallen on his knees before her, had endeavoured to seize her hand, and, failing that, was kissing the hem of her dress.
"Forgive, forgive, forgive!" he moaned; "I have been blind--blind! Let me go in peace and offend no more. She is yours, not mine; yours by your womanly grace and mercy--the love she has to give belongs to you by right of your womanly mercy. Better that I had died in Paris yesterday than live to repay you as I have!"
But now to the child's mind there seemed to come some gleam of light as to what was passing between the stranger and her mother; the words, "Better I had died in Paris," awakened her intelligence.
"Aurelie," she cried, "was this the gentleman whom you hurried to Paris to save?"
"To save!" St. Georges exclaimed, "to save! My God! do I owe my life to you as well?"
And Aurelie--her eyes cast down, her frame trembling from head to foot--murmured: "I could not let you die, knowing what I did, knowing the evil the De Roquemaures had wrought you. When Monsieur Boussac sent me word you were doomed, I determined to tell the king all."
* * * * *
So she had saved him! She, whom for four years he had regarded as a treacherous enemy, had saved not only his child but him. And ere the day was over he had learned all that she had done besides.
She told her tale to St. Georges and to Boussac as they sat in the grounds of the old manoir, and made at last all clear to the former that for so long had been dark and impenetrable.
"The man who was your worst enemy," she said, "was that vile Bishop of Lodeve; the next was Louvois--for without them my unhappy brother would have known nothing and could have attempted no harm against you. He regarded himself as the heir of the Duc de Vannes, and did not know of your existence until Phelypeaux told him of it. And at the same time the bishop said that he had another formidable rival in the Romish Church----"
"The Romish Church!"
"Yes, your father had become converted to it and was received into it by Phelypeaux himself, the example of Turenne having much influenced him. At first, on being received, he had, with the fervour of many converts, bequeathed half of his great fortune to that Church, the other half remaining a bequest to his heir--my father, and after him my unhappy half-brother. But, ere he set out on the campaign in which both he and Turenne were to lose their lives, he wrote to the bishop and told him that he had a son by an unacknowledged marriage; that he could not deem it right that he should be deprived of what was properly his, and that he had made a will leaving all his property to him. Then the search for you began, though my brother was not concerned in it, being still a child. But the bishop sought high and low, first for proofs of the marriage and next to discover where the duke's son was. And Louvois helped him because he had hated your father, who despised him, as Turenne and many of the other marshals did."
"But you, mademoiselle," exclaimed St. Georges, "how do you know all this? And did you know it when we first met?"
"No," she replied, "but my mother suspected. By this time my brother had heard something from Louvois, who had found out all when the effects of the Duc de Vannes, which he had taken with him on his last campaign--his private papers and other things--were brought back to Paris by the Comte de Lorge, Turenne's nephew; had discovered that the son was named St. Georges, his English mother's name having been St. George, but could not discover where the duke had bestowed him. Nor did he discover it until long afterward, when, happening to once more refer to the papers brought by the comte, he discovered one he had overlooked addressed to my mother; and he read it and discovered thereby that the officer, who was serving in the Regiment of the Nivernois, under the name of St. Georges, was, in truth, the lawful Duc de Vannes. Then in his cold, brutal manner he informed the bishop where the man was who stood in the light of the Church's gains, and alas! he told that other who expected so much, my unhappy half-brother. Also he told them both that this man was to be transferred to another regiment, and that he would set out from Pontarlier on a certain night. They might care to see him, he continued; therefore he should receive orders to call on the bishop at his family residence in Dijon, where he happened to be then, and on my brother in this house--though, not to arouse any suspicions, he was to present himself as a visitor to my mother. Also he told them that which neither dreamed of until then--namely, that Monsieur St. Georges was a widower, but had a child whom he would doubtless endeavour to bring with him. You must be able," she concluded, "to understand the rest."
"Ay!" said the Duc de Vannes, "I can understand. Only still, mademoiselle, I cannot conceive how you know all this."
"Yet the answer is simple. By one of those marvellous coincidences which happen as often in our everyday life as in the romances of Mademoiselle de Scudery, or the fables of Monsieur de La Fontaine, my brother had once asked my mother if she had ever heard of you, if your assumed name was known to her; the bishop supposing that she was greedy as he himself, had sent to warn her that you were on your way to Paris, and that it would be well if she could recognise in you any traces of your father and would send a word to Louvois saying whether she thought you were the man. But he overreached himself," Mademoiselle de Roquemaure added; "my mother's sympathies were with the son of him she had once loved so dearly, not with him who was the son of the man she had married. And as for Phelypeaux--she despised him!"
"Heaven bless her!" exclaimed the duke. "Yet still I know not how she unravelled all--how found out my birthright--my mother's name."
"That, too, is simple. Louvois died suddenly, as you know, in disgrace with the king. Some said by poison administered by himself, some from fear of the king's displeasure. Be that, however, as it may, his son, Barbezieux, was not allowed to touch any of his papers and all were handed to Louis intact. He confided them to De Chamlay, who refused Louvois's vacant post as minister of war but consented to go over his state affairs, and in those papers he found all; a copy of your father's letter to the bishop, the letter to my mother which had never been delivered--telling her everything and begging her to see you righted--his will and his marriage certificate, as well as that of your birth. Monseigneur, I have them upstairs--I showed them to the king the night before last--they are now at your disposal."
Boussac had strolled away ere the narrative was done--his delicacy prompting him to leave them alone--and as she concluded the Duke de Vannes dropped on his knee by her side, and, taking her hand, murmured:
"Forgive, pardon me! Bring yourself to say you forgive the evil I have thought, and let me go. Unworthy as I am to ask it, yet, if you can, forgive me and never more in this world will I offend your sight. And, for expiation, I give my child to you--you who have been so much more to her than I."
But Aurelie de Roquemaure, bending toward the kneeling man, said: "Nay. Why say that I forgive--I, who have naught to pardon? Only--do not go! Stay, rather, and win the love of the child whom you have loved so much through all your grief, through your long separation."
CONCLUSION.
The Peace of Ryswick brought about many changes in both France and England. It opened each country to the other--for a time, though but a short one!--it enabled the refugees of each to return to their own lands, and for a few years England and her neighbours were not at open enmity.
Yet one refugee there was who never returned to France, but who, in the country of his adoption, and with his beautiful wife by his side and at his knee his children, took no part in the strife between the two lands or in their politics. Instead, he dwelt upon the estate he had bought in the heart of Surrey--with the money he had realized by the sale of his property in France--and there, a prosperous gentleman, passed life easily and well.
But there was no longer any Duc de Vannes in France--that old title was never revived after the death of the late owner of it on the plains of Salzbach--and in Surrey the handsome grave gentleman, who was known to be a wealthy _emigre_ from across the Channel, was invariably spoken of and addressed as Mr. St. George.
And he was very happy thus!--happy when he thought of all the dangers he had passed through safely--though sometimes in the night his wife would hear him mutter in his sleep, "At dawn, at dawn!" and know that in his dreams his mind had gone back to that summer morning on the _Place de Greve_, when, putting out her hand, she would softly wake him; happy, too, in his children--in the one whose love had come back to him as he had prayed so long it might; happy in those others whom God had sent him: in the bright, handsome boy who bore his own name; and in the delicate, beautiful girl who bore her mother's--Aurelie.
And happy beyond all thought and early expectation when she, that mother, was by his side, or when, rising from her place near him, and stroking back the long hair from his forehead--now streaked with silver--and kissing him, would murmur:
"'If thou faint in the day of adversity, thy strength is small,'" and then falling on her knees beside him would whisper, "But your strength was great, my love, and in that strength you were able to endure."
THE END.
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182. _The Desire of the Moth._ By CAPEL VANE.
183. _A Self-Denying Ordinance._ By M. HAMILTON.
184. _Successors to the Title._ By Mrs. L. B. WALFORD.
185. _The Lost Stradivarius._ By T. MEADE FALKNER.
186. _The Wrong Man._ By DOROTHEA GERARD.
187. _In the Day of Adversity._ By J. BLOUNDELLE-BURTON.
Each, 12mo, paper cover, 50 cents; cloth, $1.00.
GEORG EBERS'S ROMANCES.
_Each, 16mo, paper, 40 cents per volume; cloth, 75 cents. Sets of 24 volumes, cloth, in box, $18.00._
In the Blue Pike. A Romance of German Life in the early Sixteenth Century. Translated by MARY J. SAFFORD. 1 volume.
In the Fire of the Forge. A Romance of Old Nuremberg. Translated by MARY J. SAFFORD. 2 volumes.
Cleopatra. Translated by MARY J. SAFFORD. 2 volumes.
A Thorny Path. (PER ASPERA.) Translated by CLARA BELL. 2 volumes.
An Egyptian Princess. Translated by ELEANOR GROVE. 2 volumes.
Uarda. Translated by CLARA BELL. 2 volumes.
Homo Sum. Translated by CLARA BELL. 1 volume.
The Sisters. Translated by CLARA BELL. 1 volume.
A Question. Translated by MARY J. SAFFORD. 1 volume.
The Emperor. Translated by CLARA BELL. 2 volumes.
The Burgomaster's Wife. Translated by MARY J. SAFFORD. 1 volume.
A Word, only a Word. Translated by MARY J. SAFFORD. 1 volume.
Serapis. Translated by CLARA BELL. 1 volume.
The Bride of the Nile. Translated by CLARA BELL. 2 volumes.
Margery. (GRED.) Translated by CLARA BELL. 2 volumes.
Joshua. Translated by MARY J. SAFFORD. 1 volume.
The Elixir, and Other Tales. Translated by Mrs. EDWARD H. BELL. With Portrait of the Author. 1 volume.
"Dr. Ebers's romances founded on ancient history are hardly equaled by any other living author.... He makes the men and women and the scenes move before the reader with living reality."--_Boston Home Journal._
"Georg Ebers writes stories of ancient times with the conscientiousness of a true investigator. His tales are so carefully told that large portions of them might be clipped or quoted by editors of guide-books and authors of histories intended to be popular."--_New York Herald._
_For sale by all booksellers; or sent by mail on receipt of price by the publishers._
New York: D. APPLETON & CO., 72 Fifth Avenue.
TWO REMARKABLE AMERICAN NOVELS.
_THE RED BADGE OF COURAGE. An Episode of the American Civil War._ By STEPHEN CRANE. 12mo. Cloth, $1.00.
"Mr. Stephen Crane is a great artist, with something new to say, and consequently with a new way of saying it.... In 'The Red Badge of Courage' Mr. Crane has surely contrived a masterpiece.... He has painted a picture that challenges comparisons with the most vivid scenes of Tolstoy's 'La Guerre et la Paix' or of Zola's 'La Debacle.'"--_London New Review._
"In its whole range of literature we can call to mind nothing so searching in its analysis, so manifestly impressed with the stamp of truth, as 'The Red Badge of Courage.'... A remarkable study of the average mind under stress of battle.... We repeat, a really fine achievement."--_London Daily Chronicle._
"Not merely a remarkable book; it is a revelation.... One feels that, with perhaps one or two exceptions, all previous descriptions of modern warfare have been the merest abstractions."--_St. James Gazette._
"Holds one irrevocably. There is no possibility of resistance when once you are in its grip, from the first of the march of the troops to the closing scenes.... Mr. Crane, we repeat, has written a remarkable book. His insight and his power of realization amount to genius."--_Pall Mall Gazette._
"There is nothing in American fiction to compare with it in the vivid, uncompromising, almost aggressive vigor with which it depicts the strangely mingled conditions that go to make up what men call war.... Mr. Crane has added to American literature something that has never been done before, and that is, in its own peculiar way, inimitable."--_Boston Beacon._
"Never before have we had the seamy side of glorious war so well depicted.... The action of the story throughout is splendid, and all aglow with color, movement, and vim. The style is as keen and bright as a sword-blade, and a Kipling has done nothing better in this line."--_Chicago Evening Post._
_IN DEFIANCE OF THE KING. A Romance of the American Revolution_. By CHAUNCEY C. HOTCHKISS. 12mo. Paper, 50 cents; cloth, $1.00.
"The whole story is so completely absorbing that you will sit far into the night to finish it. You lay it aside with the feeling that you have seen a gloriously true picture of the Revolution."--_Boston Herald._
"The story is a strong one--a thrilling one. It causes the true American to flush with excitement, to devour chapter after chapter until the eyes smart; and it fairly smokes with patriotism."--_New York Mail and Express._
"The heart beats quickly, and we feel ourselves taking part in the scenes described.... Altogether the book is an addition to American literature."--_Chicago Evening Post._
"One of the most readable novels of the year.... As a love romance it is charming, while it is filled with thrilling adventure and deeds of patriotic daring."--_Boston Advertiser._
"This romance seems to come the nearest to a satisfactory treatment in fiction of the Revolutionary period that we have yet had."--_Buffalo Courier._
"A clean, wholesome story, full of romance and interesting adventure.... Holds the interest alike by the thread of the story and by the incidents.... A remarkably well-balanced and absorbing novel."--_Milwaukee Journal._
_THE ONE WHO LOOKED ON._ By F. F. MONTRESOR, author of "Into the Highways and Hedges." 16mo. Cloth, special binding, $1.25.
"The story runs on as smoothly as a brook through lowlands; it excites your interest at the beginning and keeps it to the end."--_New York Herald._
"An exquisite story.... No person sensitive to the influence of what makes for the true, the lovely, and the strong in human friendship and the real in life's work can read this book without being benefited by it."--_Buffalo Commercial._
"The book has universal interest and very unusual merit.... Aside from its subtle poetic charm, the book is a noble example of the power of keen observation."--_Boston Herald._
_CORRUPTION._ By PERCY WHITE, author of "Mr. Bailey-Martin," etc. 12mo. Cloth, $1.25.
"There is intrigue enough in it for those who love a story of the ordinary kind, and the political part is perhaps more attractive in its sparkle and variety of incident than the real thing itself."--_London Daily News._
"A drama of biting intensity, a tragedy of inflexible purpose and relentless result."--_Pall Mall Gazette._
_A HARD WOMAN._ A Story in Scenes. By VIOLET HUNT. 12mo. Cloth, $1.25.
"An extremely clever work. Miss Hunt probably writes dialogue better than any of our young novelists.... Not only are her conversations wonderfully vivacious and sustained, but she contrives to assign to each of her characters a distinct mode of speech, so that the reader easily identifies them, and can follow the conversations without the slightest difficulty."--_London Athenaeum._
"One of the best writers of dialogue of our immediate day. The conversations in this book will enhance her already secure reputation."--_London Daily Chronicle._
"A creation that does Miss Hunt infinite credit, and places her in the front rank of the younger novelists.... Brilliantly drawn, quivering with life, adroit, quiet-witted, unfalteringly insolent, and withal strangely magnetic."--_London Standard._
_AN IMAGINATIVE MAN._ By ROBERT S. HICHENS, author of "The Green Carnation." 12mo. Cloth, $1.25.
"One of the brightest books of the year."--_Boston Budget._
"Altogether delightful, fascinating, unusual."--_Cleveland Amusement Gazette._
"A study in character.... Just as entertaining as though it were the conventional story of love and marriage. The clever hand of the author of 'The Green Carnation' is easily detected in the caustic wit and pointed epigram."--_Jeannette L. Gilder, in the New York World._
_THE CHRONICLES OF COUNT ANTONIO._ By ANTHONY HOPE, author of "The Prisoner of Zenda," "The God in the Car," etc. With a photogravure Frontispiece by S. W. VAN SCHAICK. 12mo. With special binding. $1.50.
"The Prisoner of-Zenda" proved Mr. Hope's power as the author of a fighting romance, and his pen again becomes a sword in this picturesque and thrilling story of a mediaeval Italian paladin, whose character will recall the Chevalier Bayard to the reader who breathlessly follows him through adventures and dangers that fall thick and fast.
"Mr. Anthony Hope is a striking exemplification of the fact that the talent and quality that are within a man will force themselves out, no matter how circumstances may combine and conspire to keep them under. This quiet, unassuming, low-voiced man, who, with a life of almost mechanical regularity, writes amid uninspiring surroundings, who has experienced neither the stress nor the stir of the world, but has rather progressed under quelling influences, is Anthony Hope. Anthony Hope, who from his imagination draws adventure of a keenest _Sturm und Drang_, and reticent himself, has put into the mouths of a legion of spiritual children of his own, let loose over English-speaking lands, the wit and _verve_ and brilliance of conversation which, in society, we listen for in vain, and can only hear in faintest echo from the few stages for which the acknowledged masters write--a sparkling company of talkers, who with their pleasant and inspiring sayings have belied those who have sung cynical requiem over the art which chiefly charms this poor life of ours and is its greatest happiness, the art of conversation. And it is from a house at the bottom of a gloomy London _cul-de-sac_, under the gray mist of the Thames, and in an atmosphere of headache and _ennui_, that this sparkle which has overflowed the English-speaking world goes forth."--_R. H. Sherard, in The Idler._
"Mr. Hope has been rapidly recognized by critics and by the general public as the cleverest and most entertaining of our latest-born novelists."--_St. James's Gazette._
"All his work impresses with qualities to mark a rarely cultivated mind and art."--_Boston Globe._
"Mr. Hope is a master at the work. His construction is in every way admirable. He lays an excellent foundation in the choice of his other characters, and then he marshals his incidents with consummate art."--_Milwaukee Journal._
"It is a great achievement nowadays to be entertaining, and that Mr. Hope is, in his lively, fantastic, dramatic, impossible little stories."--_Chicago Journal._
New York: D. APPLETON & CO., 72 Fifth Avenue.
S. R. CROCKETT'S LATEST BOOKS.
UNIFORM EDITION. EACH, 12MO. CLOTH, $1.50.
_BOG-MYRTLE AND PEAT._
"Here are idyls, epics, dramas of human life, written in words that thrill and burn.... Each is a poem that has an immortal flavor. They are fragments of the author's early dreams, too bright, too gorgeous, too full of the blood of rubies and the life of diamonds to be caught and held palpitating in expression's grasp."--_Boston Courier._
"Contains some of the most dramatic pieces Mr. Crockett has yet written, and in these picturesque sketches he is altogether delightful.... The volume is well worth reading--all of it."--_Philadelphia Press._
"Hardly a sketch among them all that will not afford pleasure to the reader for its genial humor, artistic local coloring, and admirable portrayal of character."--_Boston Home Journal._
"One dips into the book anywhere and reads on and on, fascinated by the writer's charm of manner."--_Minneapolis Tribune._
"These stories are lively and vigorous, and have many touches of human nature in them--such touches as we are used to from having read 'The Stickit Minister' and 'The Lilac Sunbonnet.'"--_New Haven Register._
"'Bog-Myrtle and Peat' contains stories which could only have been written by a man of genius."--_London Chronicle._
_THE LILAC SUNBONNET. A Love Story._
"A love story pure and simple, one of the old-fashioned, wholesome, sunshiny kind, with a pure-minded, sound-hearted hero, and a heroine who is merely a good and beautiful woman: and if any other lover story half so sweet has been written this year, it has escaped our notice."--_New York Times._
"A solid novel with an old-time flavor, as refreshing when compared to the average modern story as is a whiff of air from the hills to one just come from a hothouse."--_Boston Beacon._
"The general conception of the story, the motive of which is the growth of love between the young chief and heroine, is delineated with a sweetness and a freshness, a naturalness and a certainty, which places 'The Lilac Sunbonnet' among the best stories of the time."--_New York Mail and Express._
"In its own line this little love story can hardly be excelled. It is a pastoral, an idyl--the story of love and courtship and marriage of a fine young man and a lovely girl--no more. But it is told in so thoroughly delightful a manner, with such playful humor, such delicate fancy, such true and sympathetic feeling, that nothing more could be desired."--_Boston Traveller._
"A charming love story, redolent of the banks and braes and lochs and pines, healthy to the core, the love that God made for man and woman's first glimpse of paradise, and a constant reminder of it."--_San Francisco Call._
BY A. CONAN DOYLE.
_THE EXPLOITS OF BRIGADIER GERARD. A Romance of the Life of a Typical Napoleonic Soldier._ Illustrated. 12mo. Cloth, $1.50.
There is a flavor of Dumas's Musketeers in the life of the redoubtable Brigadier Gerard, a typical Napoleonic soldier, more fortunate than many of his compeers because some of his Homeric exploits were accomplished under the personal observation of the Emperor. His delightfully romantic career included an oddly characteristic glimpse of England, and his adventures ranged from the battlefield to secret service. In picturing the experiences of his fearless, hard-fighting and hard-drinking hero, the author of "The White Company" has given us a book which absorbs the interest and quickens the pulse of every reader.
_THE STARK MUNRO LETTERS._ Being a Series of Twelve Letters written by STARK MUNRO, M. B., to his friend and former fellow-student, Herbert Swanborough, of Lowell, Massachusetts, during the years 1881-1884. Illustrated. 12mo. Buckram, $1.50.
"Cullingworth,... a much more interesting creation than Sherlock Holmes, and I pray Dr. Doyle to give us more of him."--_Richard le Gallienne, in the London Star._
"Everyone who wants a hearty laugh must make acquaintance with Dr. James Cullingworth."--_Westminster Gazette._
"Everyone must read; for not to know Cullingworth should surely argue one's self to be unknown."--_Pall Mall Gazette._
"One of the freshest figures to be met with in any recent fiction."--_London Daily News._
"'The Stark Munro Letters' is a bit of real literature.... Its reading will be an epoch-making event in many a life."--_Philadelphia Evening Telegraph._
"Positively magnetic, and written with that combined force and grace for which the author's style is known."--_Boston Budget._
SEVENTH EDITION.
_ROUND THE RED LAMP._ Being Facts and Fancies of Medical Life. 12mo. Cloth, $1.50.
"Too much can not be said in praise of these strong productions, that, to read, keep one's heart leaping to the throat and the mind in a tumult of anticipation to the end.... No series of short stories in modern literature can approach them."--_Hartford Times._
"If Mr. A. Conan Doyle had not already placed himself in the front rank of living English writers by 'The Refugees,' and other of his larger stories, he would surely do so by these fifteen short tales."--_New York Mail and Express._
"A strikingly realistic and decidedly original contribution to modern literature."--_Boston Saturday Evening Gazette._
_STONEPASTURES._ By ELEANOR STUART. 16mo. Cloth, 75 cents.
This graphic picture of quaint characters belongs to the class of specialized American fiction which has been headed by the work of Miss Wilkins, Mr. Cable, Colonel Johnston, Mr. Garland, and others. The author has studied the peculiar and almost unknown life of the laborers in a Pennsylvania mining and manufacturing town with a keenness of observation and an abundant sense of humor which will give her book a permanent place among the _genre_ studies of American life.
_COURTSHIP BY COMMAND._ By M. M. BLAKE. 16mo. Cloth, 75 cents.
An interesting historical romance presenting Napoleon in a new light.
_THE WATTER'S MOU_'. By BRAM STOKER. 16mo. Cloth, 75 cents.
"Told with directness and power, and is an exceptionally strong piece of work."--_Boston Journal._
"Here is a tale to stir the most sluggish nature.... It is like standing on the deck of a wave-tossed ship; you feel the soul of the storm go into your blood."--_N. Y. Home Journal._
"The characters are strongly drawn, the descriptions are intensely dramatic, and the situations are portrayed with rare vividness of language. It is a thrilling story, told with great power."--_Boston Advertiser._
"A very thrilling smuggling tale.... There is enough of stirring incident crowded into it to make a much larger volume.... Pervaded by a good salty breeze that is refreshing."--_Chicago Evening Post._
_MASTER AND MAN._ By Count LEO TOLSTOY. With an Introduction by W. D. HOWELLS. 16mo. Cloth, 75 cents.
"Crowded with these characteristic touches which mark his literary work."--_Public Opinion._
"From the very start the reader feels that it is from a master's pen."--_Boston Times._
"Reveals a wonderful knowledge of the workings of the human mind, and it tells a tale that not only stirs the emotions, but gives us a better insight into our own hearts."--_San Francisco Argonaut._
_THE ZEIT-GEIST._ By L. DOUGALL, author of "The Mermaid," "Beggars All," etc. 16mo. Cloth, 75 cents.
"It is impossible for one to read it without feeling better for having done so--without having a desire to aid his fellow-men."--_New York Times._
"One of the best of the short stories of the day."--_Boston Journal._
"One of the most remarkable novels of the year."--_New York Commercial Advertiser._
"Powerful in conception, treatment, and influence."--_Boston Globe._
New York: D. APPLETON & CO., 72 Fifth Avenue.
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End of Project Gutenberg's In the Day of Adversity, by John Bloundelle-Burton