CHAPTER XIV.

Chapter 148,644 wordsPublic domain

Throckmorton's year of leave was not up, yet he went immediately back to his post. Everything that had happened to him in the last six months had been so unreal, so out of all his previous experiences, that he needed the every-day routine of duty to enable him to get his bearings. He wanted to find out if he himself was changed. There was certainly a change in him, which everybody saw; but he was not a man to be questioned. He went about his duty, quietly and self-containedly. He had always found a plenty to do, and wondered at the idleness that he sometimes saw around him; and now he was busier than ever. He was not a philanthropic meddler, and was as loath to offer his advice unasked to a soldier as to an officer, but he earnestly desired, now more than ever, to be of help to his fellow-men, and Throckmorton's help was always efficient because it never hurt the self-respect of those who received it. Certain of the non-commissioned officers at his post were competing for a commission. To his surprise and gratification, he found them anxious to be instructed by him. So he turned schoolmaster, and patiently and laboriously, night after night, gave them the advantage of all he knew. Only one got the commission, but all were qualified when Throckmorton got through with them. He was not any less alert and attentive than before, but in all his waking moments, when his mind was not imperatively drawn to other things, he was thinking over those six months at Millenbeck--the hopes with which he went back; the strangeness of finding himself under the ban among his own people; the renewal of the link with Barn Elms, after thirty years' absence; his complete infatuation with Jacqueline--and, out of it all, rose Judith's face. How hard had been her lot; and how strange it was that he had made confidences to her, and that, of all the women he had ever known, she was the only one of whose sympathy he had ever felt the need! He considered his somewhat barren life--his reserved habits--and sometimes thought Heaven was kind to Jacqueline in not giving her to him, for he could not bend his nature to any woman's--the woman must conform to him; and it was not in Jacqueline to be anything but what Nature had made her.

Jack was off at the university, and Millenbeck was shut up, silent and deserted.

Freke was gone. He disappeared apparently from the face of the earth. He wanted neither to see nor hear anything of anybody connected with Jacqueline. Throckmorton, on the contrary, clung to the ties at Barn Elms.

But to Judith Temple life had become infinitely sadder and poorer than ever before. She had caught one glimpse of paradise, and that had changed the whole face of life for her, and she seemed all at once to be very much alone. But in one sense she was less alone than ever before. Mrs. Temple's will and courage and purpose seemed gone. She changed strangely after Jacqueline's death. She, who had once silently resented the slightest forgetfulness of Beverley, now seemed to feel acutely that the living should not be sacrificed to the dead. She began to urge Judith to go from home; to take off her mourning at the end of a year. Judith gently protested. The truth was that, although Mrs. Temple had at last come out of that strange forgetfulness of Jacqueline and mourned as other mothers do, Jacqueline took nothing out of her life. With Judith it was as if her child had been taken. She could not pass Jacqueline's empty room without remembering how she would waylay her, and draw her in to sit by the fire and dream and romance. She could not sew or read or do anything without feeling the loss of the childish companionship. Even when she laid aside her seriousness for her child and romped and played with the boy, he was apt to say, "I wish Jacky would come back and play with me again."

At intervals Mrs. Temple received kind and sympathetic letters from Throckmorton, and replied to them with letters worded with her own simple eloquence. In Throckmorton's letters he spoke of Jacqueline rather as if she had been his child than his promised wife. Among them all Jacqueline's memory was that of a child. Throckmorton sent kind messages to Judith; and Mrs. Temple, when she wrote, conveyed short but expressive replies from Judith.

Two years had passed. So quiet and uneventful had been their lives, that Judith would have had difficulty in persuading herself that the years were slipping by, but for little Beverley, now a handsome, sturdy urchin, whose long, fair hair had been cut off, and who emerged from dainty white frocks into kilts. The grandfather and grandmother daily more adored the child. Judith thought sometimes they were fast forgetting Jacqueline. The grass was quite green over Jacqueline by this time, and the head-stone had lost its perfect whiteness. But to Judith there was no forgetting. She had loved the child as if she had been her own, and she loved Throckmorton still. Jack wrote to her at intervals, his letters always containing some allusion to Jacqueline. Judith thought sometimes, with wonder, that Fate should not in the first instance have united those two young creatures, boy and girl.

One night, two winters after Jacqueline had gone away, Judith, who every night before going to bed went to her window, and, drawing the curtain, looked long toward Millenbeck, saw a bright light shining from the hall-door and two of the lower windows of the house. Every night, as she gazed at it, she had seen it black and tenantless, and utterly deserted; but, now--

"Throckmorton has come!" she said to herself.

Next morning he came over early to see them. He found General Temple the same General Temple--courteous and verbose. His health being very good, he was an Episcopalian for the time being; but, whenever the gout appeared, he had his old way of lapsing into Presbyterianism. Mrs. Temple was the same, and yet not the same. Throckmorton saw a change in her. She, the most unyielding of women, had become easy and indulgent. Simon Peter and Delilah came in to speak to him, and a wifely rebuke, administered in the pantry, was distinctly audible to Throckmorton:

"Huccome you ain' taken off dat ole coat, nigger, an' put on dat one mistis give you, fur ter speak ter Marse George Throckmorton? He su't'ny will think we all's po', ef you keep on dat er way."

"We _is_ po', but we is first quality, 'oman!"

Judith, who had great self-command, could control her eyes, her voice, her manner; but happiness, the outlaw, at seeing Throckmorton again, brought the red blood surging to her cheeks. Throckmorton, who was exactly like his old self, was surprised and inwardly agitated at it. They spoke some tender words of Jacqueline, all of them sitting together in the old-fashioned drawing-room. Her little chair was in its old place, but Judith sat in it; and even the ragged footstool on which Jacqueline had toasted her little feet was near it. Throckmorton noticed all these things with tenderness in his dark eyes. He was a little grayer than before, but he was the same erect, soldierly figure; he had the same simple but commanding dignity.

He walked home in a curious state of emotion. In those two years he had not ceased thinking deeply over that short episode, so full of happiness and pain--the happiness a little unreal, and vexed with many pangs; the pain very real, but with strange suggestions that, after all, the happiness held more possibilities of wretchedness. He could think, for Jacqueline's sake, how much better off she was, lying so peacefully in the old grave-yard, than if she had lived, so weak, so captivating, so unthinking. What would life have been to her? And so, at forty-six, after having experienced more than most men, he began the analysis of his own emotions, and realized that all he had known of love was perilously like a mirage. He had entered into a fool's paradise, but he knew that he of all men could least be satisfied there. His reason, his intellect, always overmastered him in the end; and what was there in this bewitching child to satisfy either? Jacqueline, young, was a dream; Jacqueline, old, was a fantasm. All this had come to him soon after Jacqueline's death, in that period of self-searching that followed. But, when he had got thus far, which was some time before his return to Millenbeck, a great change came upon him. He began to feel a sort of acute disappointment. He had loved and suffered much for that which he felt would not have made him happy had he gained it. All that love, grief, passion, had been vain; here he checked himself; the memory of his girl-wife was sacred from even his own questionings; and so was that later love, but the necessity for checking himself told volumes. And then, by slow degrees, the image of Judith Temple had stolen upon him. It was very gradual, it was many months in coming, but, when at last it dawned upon him, it was a sort of glorious surprise. How stupid, how blind had he been! Where were his doubts and questionings? Could anybody doubt Judith Temple's sympathy and understanding? He remembered the quaint words of the Jewish king, "The heart of her husband doth safely trust." He had seen enough of the way these weaker women had striven to bend him, but Judith had the beautiful charm of bending herself. She could be whatever the man she loved desired her to be. Throckmorton at once felt that any man married to Judith Temple would indeed be free, and how sweet would it be to see that proud spirit that yielded but seldom bend to his will! That homage, so rare and precious, was what women of her type paid to the master-passion. Most women that he had ever seen yielded to the predominant influence; but women like Judith Temple bent their heads and smiled and played at humility, but yielded not one inch of their soul's standing-ground until the moment came. Throckmorton, who possessed true masculine courage, admired this kind of feminine bravery. He felt that to conquer such a woman would be like capturing a Roman standard. And how utterly those proud women surrendered when they did surrender! He could fancy Judith's brave pretenses melting away; how charming would be her sweet inexperience! How quickly she would persuade herself that there was nothing so wise, true, just as love! Throckmorton, although he had silenced his discernment, had never strangled it, and he began to study and know Judith. But there was no suspicion in his mind that she cared anything for him; and, when he made up his mind to return to Millenbeck and see her again, he was anything but sanguine. He felt that if he failed it would make infinitely more difference to him than anything that had ever happened to him in life before. He was absolutely afraid, and fear, he knew, when it came to men like him, meant something overmastering. Throckmorton sighed when he realized his want of courage. He knew it would be forthcoming in an emergency; he had felt that in battle, where his first tremors never made him doubt for an instant that when the time came to use his courage it would be there; but it was a new thing to fear his fate at the hands of a woman. But the woman had become much more to him than any other woman had ever been; she was so much to him that it rather appalled him.

Nevertheless, anxieties or no anxieties, he went about winning Judith with the same coolness and deliberation he did everything else. He had two months' leave, and he determined to spend it all at Millenbeck. Judith might break his heart, but she should not defraud him of those months in her society that he had promised himself for a good while before. For a long time past in his pleasant quarters at his post, in his regular round of duty, in the part he took in social life, he had comforted himself with the idea that, whether he was destined to this greater happiness or not, he would at least see this woman of all women; he would hear her soft voice, listen to her talk, seasoned with a dainty, womanly wit. Nobody should deprive him of that. He began to remember with a frown Jack's turpitude about Judith's letters. As soon as Jack found out that his father wanted to see those friendly, kindly letters, he made great ado about showing them, playing the major very much as he would a peculiarly game and warlike salmon. The cast in Throckmorton's eye was apt to come out so savagely at these times that he was, as Jack said, positively cross-eyed. But after Jack had worked him up into a silent rage, he would then produce the letters. Throckmorton had always taken women's letters as highly indicative, and Judith's were so refined, so sparkling in spite of the narrow round in which she lived, that Throckmorton's countenance immediately cleared and the cast disappeared from his eye as soon as he had got hold of one of these cherished epistles, all of which had been by no means lost on Jack.

Throckmorton went and came between Barn Elms and Millenbeck in the most natural and neighborly way in the world. He brought books over to Judith, and often read aloud at Barn Elms in the evenings. General Temple, still hard at work on the History of Temple's Brigade, which now approached its seventh volume, found Throckmorton a mine of information. A soldier from the crown of his head to the sole of his foot, Throckmorton had a queer diffidence about speaking of his profession, in marked contrast to General Temple, who declaimed the science of war with same easy confidence with which Edmund Morford explained the inscrutable mysteries of religion. As Throckmorton watched General Temple stalking up and down the quaint old drawing-room, haranguing and expounding, the idea that this man had been intrusted with the fate of battle perfectly staggered him. His sense of humor was keen, and, between his professional horror of General Temple's methods and the utter absurdity of the whole thing, he would be convulsed with silent laughter. Judith, the picture of demureness, would give him a glance that would almost create an explosion. With much simplicity General Temple would add:

"At that time, my dear Throckmorton, I was unfortunately separated from my command. I conceive it to be the duty of the commander of troops to set them an example of personal courage, and so I occupied a slightly exposed position."

Throckmorton did not doubt it in the least. The general's incapacity was only exceeded by his courage.

Throckmorton's native modesty, as well as the fact that he knew a great deal about the war and his profession, kept him comparatively silent; but finding that, when he talked with General Temple about battles and campaigns, Judith's face gradually grew scarlet with suppressed excitement, and that like most women she was easily carried away by the recitals of adventure, he artfully took up the thread of conversation and surprised himself by his own eloquence. It was not like the almost forgotten Freke's polished and charming periods, but it was none the less eloquent for being rather brief and pointed; and once or twice when Judith paid him some little compliment, her speaking eyes conveying more meaning than her words, Throckmorton would be seized with a fit of bashfulness, and clapping his rusty but still cherished blue cap on his head would go home and never say "war" for a week.

Their lives were so quiet, so shut out from even the small world of a provincial neighborhood, that nothing was known or talked of about them. Judith, who was capable of revenge, felt a deep resentment against the county people. She, who before Jacqueline's death had been all sweetness and affability, showed a kind of haughtiness to the people who were well enough disposed to make amends to the Barn Elms family. Throckmorton noticed, when she went out of church behind General and Mrs. Temple, holding her boy by the hand, that the father and mother stopped and talked as neighbors in the country do, but Judith made straight for the rickety carriage which Simon Peter still drove.

The two months were nearly over. Throckmorton and Judith had seen much of each other, but there had been no exchange of intimate thoughts between them but once. This was one afternoon when they were alone at Barn Elms, that Throckmorton talked openly of Jacqueline.

"It is not treason to her, poor child," he said, "but--it was--a mistake. I truly loved her. I had thought that love was impossible to me after the loss I suffered so many years ago. But it was a madness; and, however delicious the madness of youth may be, when a man has reached my time of life he knows it to be madness. I have never dared to think what would the ultimate end have been had she lived and married me. The certainty one has of happiness is the life of love; but that certainty I never had. I never knew whether Jacqueline's love would be enough for me, even had it been mine; and I could never shake off a horrible fear that mine would not be enough for her."

Judith, who had listened silently to this, suddenly leaned forward and gazed at him involuntarily. The thought in her mind was, that no ordinary woman would be enough for Throckmorton. He could give much, but he would ask for much. Like all men of commanding sense and character, he was exacting.

Throckmorton could not follow her thought--he only saw her deep and expressive eyes, the pensive droop of her mouth, all the refined beauty of her face. He began to think how she would blossom out under the influence of happiness; what a happy, merry, delightful creature she would be if she loved; and something in his fixed and ardent gaze made Judith draw back, and brought the slight flush to her face, that meant much for her. She trembled a little, and Throckmorton saw it. When he returned to Millenbeck, he sat up half the night smoking strong cigars--the prosaic way in which his agitations always worked themselves off--lost in a delicious reverie of what might be. Here was a woman who appealed to his pride as much as to his love. Throckmorton, who was practical as well as romantic, thought it a very good thing for a man to marry a woman he could be proud of. Yet, when the last embers of the library fire had died out, and the cigars had given out too, and he began to be chill and stiff, sitting in his great arm-chair, he felt discouraged, and said almost out aloud, "I don't believe she will marry me."

It grew toward the last days of Throckmorton's stay. He had gone to but few places in the county. The temper of the people toward him had changed since he first came there; every year had brought its crop of tolerance, but it had ceased to be of importance to him. Indeed, but one thing mattered to him then--whether Judith would marry him. But he deliberately put off the decisive moment until the very afternoon before he was to leave. He had in vain tried to find out whether the friendly regret at his going that she expressed concealed a deeper feeling, but Judith was too clever for him. She had gone through the whole range of feeling since she first knew him, and now was better armed than she had ever been before.

He walked over to Barn Elms on that last afternoon, feeling very much as he had done years before, when, after long waiting, with the thunder of cannon in his ears and the smoke of musketry before his eyes, the order had come for him to move forward. It was well enough to think and plan before--but now, it was time to act; and, just as in that time of battle, he became cool and confident as soon as he was brought face to face with danger.

He timed his visit just when he knew Judith would be taking her afternoon walk with little Beverley. Sure enough, she was out. He stayed a little while with General and Mrs. Temple. When he rose to go, he said, quite boldly, to Mrs. Temple:

"I am going to find Judith."

He had never called her by her name before, and did it unconsciously. Mrs. Temple, though, who was acute as most women are about these things, looked at him steadily. Throckmorton colored a little, but his eye had never drooped before any woman's, not even Mrs. Temple's. But she, after a little pause, laid her hand on his shoulder--he was not a tall man, like General Temple, and she could easily reach it--and said: "I hope you--will find Judith, George Throckmorton."

He went forth and struck out toward the belt of fragrant pines, where he knew Judith oftenest walked. It was spring again--April, with the delicious smell of the newly plowed earth in the air, and the faint perfume of the coming leaves--the putting-forth time. The entrancing stillness that all people born and nurtured in the country love so much was upon the soul of Nature. The dreamy and solemn murmur of the pines seemed only to make the greater silence obvious. In a little while he saw Judith's graceful figure coming his way. She wore a pale-gray gown, and a large black hat shaded her face. In her hand she carried a branch of the pale-pink dogwood, that does not grow by open roads and farm-fields, but in the depths of the woods. Beverley, with another branch of dogwood across his shoulder, like a gun, marched sturdily ahead of her. Throckmorton, who had carefully guarded his behavior since he had been home, was quite reckless now. He meant to risk it, and since all depended on the cast of a die, prudence was superfluous. He took Judith's hand and held it until he saw the red blood steal into her face. He looked at her so, that she could not lift her eyes from the ground. Beverley, however, claimed his rights. He and Throckmorton were great friends.

"How you _is_?" he asked, offering his chubby hand and looking up fearlessly into Throckmorton's face. The child had lost his mother's shy, appealing glance. He was a little man, instead of a baby, as he often told her proudly. "I'm going to be a soldier, I am," was his next remark, "and I'm going to be a brave soldier."

"That's right," said Throckmorton, "and, as I'm a soldier, too, perhaps I'll help you along."

"Will you make me a soldier?" asked Beverley, pushing his cap back off his curly head.

"Yes, if you will go immediately home--all by yourself. You see--it isn't far--just along the path and through the gap, to the orchard, and then to the house."

Beverley looked meditatively at the distance. It seemed a perilous way for a six-year old. Judith stood, crimson and helpless. Throckmorton was a masterful man, and, when he took things in his own hands, he was apt to have his own way. She knew at once what he meant, and it gave her a kind of shock--she seemed about to be transported to another world. This sending away of her child was what nobody had ever done before. Throckmorton, smiling, said to the boy, "A soldier shouldn't be afraid."

"I'm not afraid of nothin'," answered Beverley, stoutly. Judith stooped toward him, and the child threw his arms about her and kissed her--a kiss she passionately returned. She felt it to be her farewell to him as the first object of her existence. She knew that he was to be supplanted. The boy trotted off, not looking behind once.

"See how brave he is, for a little fellow," she said, still blushing.

"Yes, very brave. But you are a woman of great courage. You gave some of it to that boy."

Throckmorton was no laggard in love. He lost not a moment. He, who was by nature reticent, became, under the influence of the master-passion, bold and ready of speech. Judith, who was by nature of a sweet and humorous talkativeness, became eloquently silent--her heart seemed to melt into an ineffable softness and yielding. She said one thing, though, as they turned to walk home through the delicious purple twilight:

"I think men can love more than once; but I don't think women can love but once."

Throckmorton perfectly understood her.

When they walked together across the lawn, under the gnarled locusts and poplars, they saw General and Mrs. Temple standing on the steps of the old house, with little Beverley between them. Throckmorton watched Judith jealously to see if there was anything like shame or apology in her look; but she, who could not look him in the face when they were alone in their secret paradise, now held her head up proudly. Nobody could have told, from Throckmorton's quiet self-possession, that anything unusual had occurred; but never before had he known anything like the deep delight that now enthralled him.

THE END.

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The standards and life of "the new navy" are breezily set forth with a genuine ring impossible from the most gifted "outsider." "The story of the destruction of the 'Maine,' and of the Battle of Manila, are very dramatic. The author is the daughter of one naval officer and the wife of another. Naval folks will find much to interest them in 'The Spirit of the Service.'"--_The Book Buyer._

A SPECTRE OF POWER. By Charles Egbert Craddock.

Miss Murfree has pictured Tennessee mountains and the mountain people in striking colors and with dramatic vividness, but goes back to the time of the struggles of the French and English in the early eighteenth century for possession of the Cherokee territory. The story abounds in adventure, mystery, peril and suspense.

THE STORM CENTRE. By Charles Egbert Craddock.

A war story; but more of flirtation, love and courtship than of fighting or history. The tale is thoroughly readable and takes its readers again into golden Tennessee, into the atmosphere which has distinguished all of Miss Murfree's novels.

THE ADVENTURESS. By Coralie Stanton. With color frontispiece by Harrison Fisher, and attractive inlay cover in colors.

As a penalty for her crimes, her evil nature, her flint-like callousness, her more than inhuman cruelty, her contempt for the laws of God and man, she was condemned to bury her magnificent personalty, her transcendent beauty, her superhuman charms, in gilded obscurity at a King's left hand. A powerful story powerfully told.

THE GOLDEN GREYHOUND. A Novel by Dwight Tilton. With illustrations by E. Pollak.

A thoroughly good story that keeps you guessing to the very end, and never attempts to instruct or reform you. It is a strictly up-to-date story of love and mystery with wireless telegraphy and all the modern improvements. The events nearly all take place on a big Atlantic liner and the romance of the deep is skilfully made to serve as a setting for the romance, old as mankind, yet always new, involving our hero.

GROSSET & DUNLAP, .. NEW YORK

FAMOUS COPYRIGHT BOOKS IN POPULAR PRICED EDITIONS

LAVENDER AND OLD LACE. By Myrtle Reed.

A charming story of a quaint corner of New England where bygone romance finds a modern parallel. One of the prettiest, sweetest, and quaintest of old-fashioned love stories *** A rare book, exquisite in spirit and conception, full of delicate fancy, of tenderness, of delightful humor and spontaneity. A dainty volume, especially suitable for a gift.

DOCTOR LUKE OF THE LABRADOR. By Norman Duncan. With a frontispiece and inlay cover.

How the doctor came to the bleak Labrador coast and there in saving life made expiation. In dignity, simplicity, humor, in sympathetic etching of a sturdy fisher people, and above all in the echoes of the sea, _Doctor Luke_ is worthy of great praise. Character, humor, poignant pathos, and the sad grotesque conjunctions of old and new civilizations are expressed through the medium of a style that has distinction and strikes a note of rare personality.

THE DAY'S WORK. By Rudyard Kipling. Illustrated.

The _London Morning Post_ says: "It would be hard to find better reading *** the book is so varied, so full of color and life from end to end, that few who read the first two or three stories will lay it down till they have read the last--and the last is a veritable gem *** contains some of the best of his highly vivid work *** Kipling is a born story-teller and a man of humor into the bargain."

ELEANOR LEE. By Margaret E. Sangster. With a frontispiece.

A story of married life, and attractive picture of wedded bliss *** an entertaining story or a man's redemption through a woman's love *** no one who knows anything of marriage or parenthood can read this story with eyes that are always dry *** goes straight to the heart of everyone who knows the meaning of "love" and "home."

THE COLONEL OF THE RED HUZZARS. By John Reed Scott. Illustrated by Clarence F. Underwood.

"Full of absorbing charm, sustained interest, and a wealth of thrilling and romantic situations. So naively fresh in its handling, so plausible through its naturalness, that it comes like a mountain breeze across the far-spreading desert of similar romances."--_Gazette-Times, Pittsburg._ "A slap-dashing day romance."--_New York Sun._

GROSSET & DUNLAP, .. NEW YORK.

FAMOUS COPYRIGHT BOOKS IN POPULAR PRICED EDITIONS

THE FAIR GOD; OR, THE LAST OF THE TZINS. By Lew Wallace. With illustrations by Eric Pape.

"The story tells of the love of a native princess for Alvarado, and it is worked out with all of Wallace's skill *** it gives a fine picture of the heroism of the Spanish conquerors and of the culture and nobility of the Aztecs."--_New York Commercial Advertiser._

"_Ben Hur_ sold enormously, but _The Fair God_ was the best of the General's stories--a powerful and romantic treatment of the defeat of Montezuma by Cortes."--_Athenaeum._

THE CAPTAIN OF THE KANSAS. By Louis Tracy.

A story of love and the salt sea--of a helpless ship whirled into the hands of cannibal Fuegians--of desperate fighting and tender romance, enhanced by the art of a master of story telling who describes with his wonted felicity and power of holding the reader's attention *** filled with the swing of adventure.

A MIDNIGHT GUEST. A Detective Story. By Fred M. White. With a frontispiece.

The scene of the story centers in London and Italy. The book is skilfully written and makes one of the most baffling, mystifying, exciting detective stories ever written--cleverly keeping the suspense and mystery intact until the surprising discoveries which precede the end.

THE HONOUR OF SAVELLI. A Romance. By S. Levett Yeats. With cover and wrapper in four colors.

Those who enjoyed Stanley Weyman's _A Gentleman of France_ will be engrossed and captivated by this delightful romance of Italian history. It is replete with exciting episodes, hair-breath escapes, magnificent sword-play, and deals with the agitating times in Italian history when Alexander II was Pope and the famous and infamous Borgias were tottering to their fall.

SISTER CARRIE. By Theodore Drieser. With a frontispiece, and wrapper in color.

In all fiction there is probably no more graphic and poignant study of the way in which man loses his grip on life, lets his pride, his courage, his self-respect slip from him, and, finally, even ceases to struggle in the mire that has engulfed him. *** There is more tonic value in _Sister Carrie_ than in a whole shelfful of sermons.

GROSSET & DUNLAP, .. NEW YORK

FAMOUS COPYRIGHT BOOKS IN POPULAR PRICED EDITIONS

NEW CHRONICLES OF REBECCA, By Kate Douglas Wiggin With illustrations by F. C. Yohn.

Additional episodes in the girlhood of the delightful little heroine at Riverboro which were not included in the story of "Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm," and they are as characteristic and delightful as any part of that famous story. Rebecca is as distinct a creation in the second volume as in the first.

THE SILVER BUTTERFLY, By Mrs. Wilson Woodrow With illustrations in colors by Howard Chandler Christy.

A story of love and mystery, full of color, charm, and vivacity, dealing with a South American mine, rich beyond dreams, and of a New York maiden, beyond dreams beautiful--both known as the Silver Butterfly. Well named is _The Silver Butterfly_! There could not be a better symbol of the darting swiftness, the eager love plot, the elusive mystery and the flashing wit.

BEATRIX OF CLARE, By John Reed Scott With illustrations by Clarence F. Underwood.

A spirited and irresistibly attractive historical romance of the fifteenth century, boldly conceived and skilfully carried out. In the hero and heroine Mr. Scott has created a pair whose mingled emotions and alternating hopes and fears will find a welcome in many lovers of the present hour. Beatrix is a fascinating daughter of Eve.

A LITTLE BROTHER OF THE RICH, By Joseph Medill Patterson Frontispiece by Hazel Martyn Trudeau, and illustrations by Walter Dean Goldbeck.

Tells the story of the idle rich, and is a vivid and truthful picture of society and stage life written by one who is himself a conspicuous member of the Western millionaire class. Full of grim satire, caustic wit and flashing epigrams. "Is sensational to a degree in its theme, daring in its treatment, lashing society as it was never scourged before."--_New York Sun._

GROSSET & DUNLAP, Publishers, .. NEW YORK

FAMOUS COPYRIGHT BOOKS IN POPULAR PRICED EDITIONS

BARBARA WINSLOW, REBEL, By Elizabeth Ellis With illustrations by John Rae, and colored inlay cover.

The following, taken from story, will best describe the heroine: A TOAST: "To the bravest comrade in misfortune, the sweetest companion in peace and at all times the most courageous of women."--_Barbara Winslow._ "A romantic story, buoyant, eventful, and in matters of love exactly what the heart could desire."--_New York Sun._

SUSAN, By Ernest Oldmeadow With a color frontispiece by Frank Haviland. Medallion in color on front cover.

Lord Ruddington falls helplessly in love with Miss Langley, whom he sees in one of her walks accompanied by her maid, Susan. Through a misapprehension of personalities his lordship addresses a love missive to the maid. Susan accepts in perfect good faith, and an epistolary love-making goes on till they are disillusioned. It naturally makes a droll and delightful little comedy; and is a story that is particularly clever in the telling.

WHEN PATTY WENT TO COLLEGE, By Jean Webster With illustrations by C. D. Williams.

"The book is a treasure."--_Chicago Daily News._ "Bright, whimsical, and thoroughly entertaining."--_Buffalo Express._ "One of the best stories of life in a girl's college that has ever been written."--_N.Y. Press._ "To any woman who has enjoyed the pleasures of a college life this book cannot fail to bring back many sweet recollections; and to those who have not been to college the wit, lightness, and charm of Patty are sure to be no less delightful."--_Public Opinion._

THE MASQUERADER, By Katherine Cecil Thurston With illustrations by Clarence F. Underwood.

"You can't drop it till you have turned the last page."--_Cleveland Leader._ "Its very audacity of motive, of execution, of solution, almost takes one's breath away. The boldness of its denouement is sublime."--_Boston Transcript._ "The literary hit of a generation. The best of it is the story deserves all its success. A masterly story."--_St. Louis Dispatch._ "The story is ingeniously told, and cleverly constructed."--_The Dial._

THE GAMBLER, By Katherine Cecil Thurston With illustrations by John Campbell.

"Tells of a high strung young Irish woman who has a passion for gambling, inherited from a long line of sporting ancestors. She has a high sense of honor, too, and that causes complications. She is a very human, lovable character, and love saves her."--_N.Y. Times._

GROSSET & DUNLAP, .. NEW YORK

FAMOUS COPYRIGHT BOOKS IN POPULAR PRICED EDITIONS

THE SHUTTLE, By Frances Hodgson Burnett With inlay cover in colors by Clarence F. Underwood.

This great international romance relates the story of an American girl who, in rescuing her sister from the ruins of her marriage to an Englishman of title, displays splendid qualities of courage, tact and restraint. As a study of American womanhood of modern times, the character of Bettina Vanderpoel stands alone in literature. As a love story, the account of her experience is magnificent. The masterly handling, the glowing style of the book, give it a literary rank to which very few modern novels have attained.

THE MAKING OF A MARCHIONESS, By Frances Hodgson Burnett Illustrated with half tone engravings by Charles D. Williams. With initial letters, tail-pieces, decorative borders. Beautifully printed, and daintily bound, and boxed.

A delightful novel in the author's most charming vein. The scene is laid in an English country house, where an amiable English nobleman is the centre of matrimonial interest on the part of both the English and Americans present.

Graceful, sprightly, almost delicious in its dialogue and action. It is a book about which one is tempted to write ecstatically.

THE METHODS OF LADY WALDERHURST, By Francis Hodgson Burnett A Companion Volume to "The Making of a Marchioness." With illustrations by Charles D. Williams, and with initial letters, tail-pieces, and borders, by A. K. Womrath. Beautifully printed and daintily bound, and boxed.

"The Methods of Lady Walderhurst" is a delightful story which combines the sweetness of "The Making of a Marchioness," with the dramatic qualities of "A Lady of Quality." Lady Walderhurst is one of the most charming characters in modern fiction.

VAYENNE, By Percy Brebner With illustrations by E. Fuhr.

This romance like the author's _The Princess Maritza_ is charged to the brim with adventure. Sword play, bloodshed, justice grown the multitude, sacrifice, and romance, mingle in dramatic episodes that are born, flourish, and pass away on every page.

GROSSET & DUNLAP, Publishers, .. NEW YORK

FAMOUS COPYRIGHT BOOKS IN POPULAR PRICED EDITIONS

DARREL OF THE BLESSED ISLES, By Irving Bacheller With illustrations by Arthur Keller.

"Darrel, the clock tinker, is a wit, philosopher, and man of mystery. Learned, strong, kindly, dignified, he towers like a giant above the people among whom he lives. It is another tale of the North Country, full of the odor of wood and field. Wit, humor, pathos and high thinking are in this book."--_Boston Transcript._

D'RI AND I: A Tale of Daring Deeds in the Second War with the British. Being the Memoirs of Colonel Ramon Bell, U. S. A., By Irving Bacheller With illustrations by F. C. Yohn.

"Mr. Bacheller is admirable alike in his scenes of peace and war. D'ri, a mighty hunter, has the same dry humor as Uncle Eb. He fights magnificently on the 'Lawrence,' and was among the wounded when Perry went to the 'Niagara.' As a romance of early American history it is great for the enthusiasm it creates."--_New York Times._

EBEN HOLDEN: A Tale of the North Country, By Irving Bacheller.

"As pure as water and as good as bread," says Mr. Howells. "Read 'Eben Holden'" is the advice of Margaret Sangster. "It is a forest-scented, fresh-aired, bracing and wholly American story of country and town life. *** If in the far future our successors wish to know what were the real life and atmosphere in which the country folk that saved this nation grew, loved, wrought and had their being, they must go back to such true and zestful and poetic tales of 'fiction' as 'Eben Holden,'" says Edmund Clarence Stedman.

SILAS STRONG: Emperor of the Woods, By Irving Bacheller With a frontispiece.

"A modern _Leatherstocking_. Brings the city dweller the aroma of the pine and the music of the wind in its branches--an epic poem *** forest-scented, fresh-aired, and wholly American. A stronger character than Eben Holden."--_Chicago Record-Herald._

VERGILIUS: A Tale of the Coming of Christ, By Irving Bacheller.

A thrilling and beautiful story of two young Roman patricians whose great and perilous love in the reign of Augustus leads them through the momentous, exciting events that marked the year just preceding the birth of Christ.

Splendid character studies of the Emperor Augustus, of Herod and his degenerate son, Antipater, and of his daughter "the incomparable" Salome. A great triumph in the art of historical portrait painting.

GROSSET & DUNLAP, .. NEW YORK

TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE:

Minor changes have been made to correct typesetters' errors; otherwise, every effort has been made to remain true to the author's words and intent.