TWO TROUBLESOME WEDDING GIFTS
LOOKING down upon Genoa through the blue reaches of the upper crests is
an Apennine peak which the people, high and low, call Our Lady of the
Windows. Ever mantled in snow, and a fit emblem of icy virtue, she has
for ages inspired a negative chord for that region’s lyres of passion.
The princeling in his hillside palazzo sings of his dream lady--always
an angel as fervid as the glacial Madonna is cold; the red waterman,
in his moonlight barcarole, swears his love would melt that frozen
heart. But she bears no kinship to this chronicle save that Signor Di
Bello, on the afternoon of the pregnant Feast of Sunday, when all was
primed for the wedding, thus addressed his sister, who sat by a front
casement:
“Ha! my Lady of the Windows, it is time to go and fetch my bride.”
Carolina gave back only a silent nod and a closer pressure of the lips,
and he made off to the Santa Lucia, crowing to himself over the timely
bite of his pleasantry. Hour after hour she had been at that window
watching for Bertino, ready to spring to the door and drive him away
should he appear too soon. She was determined that the play should not
be spoiled by the untimely entrance of her star actor. His cue, as
agreed upon, was the exit of Signor Di Bello, but the fear had haunted
her that his itching _vendetta_ might make him forget the book. That
danger was past now, and before his uncle had gone a block, Bertino
was at the door. She bundled him upstairs to her sanctum, and, turning
the key, left him looking out blankly on the graveyard. “In a little
while I shall call you,” she said, after explaining gravely that she
locked him in that his uncle might be kept out. Then she descended to
the street door and waved her hand, a signal that brought a push-cart
out of a near-by alley, with Armando and the banker at its shafts. Of
course, their load was the Last Lady, but no eye could see her face,
for Bridget had given her best and only bed coverlet to veil it. No
easy task to lug the weighty dame upstairs, but they managed it without
mischance, while Carolina stood by imploring care, and all with an ado
of deepest secrecy. At length the bust was set up in the back room of
the second floor. In this room the bride and groom were to wait before
going down to the parlour for the ceremony. A dressing case near the
window answered for a pedestal. In the bright light that fell upon it
the snowy features of Juno showed bold to the eye, while the mirror
rendered back in softer tone her sturdy neck and shoulders. With a
spotless sheet Carolina covered the bust, and with the others left the
room and locked the door.
Repeated jangling of the bell and a low drone in the parlour told of
arriving guests. Marianna had been cast for the part of door-opener and
welcomer to the first families. Armando, in the best attire he could
muster, had only a meditative rôle. Thus far he had done naught but sit
in the parlour and exchange confident glances with Marianna whenever
she ushered in a distinguished Calabriano, Siciliano, or Napolitano.
A cab bearing Signor Di Bello and Juno drew up betimes, and word
was passed to Carolina. Instantly she unlocked the door that shut
in Bertino, and bade him be ready for her summons. Then she called
Marianna and Armando to the room where the bust was, leaving Angelica
to let in the bridal pair. Up the staircase they rustled, Juno first,
her skirts held free of the yellow boots, and Signor Di Bello smiling
after her with a quivering bunch of muslin roses.
“They are here,” said the guests, craning their necks and whispering.
“No fiasco this time.”
“This way, signorina,” piped Carolina, with a spidery smile, stepping
aside and waving her fly into the web.
They entered the room prepared for them, and Signor Di Bello regarded
in wonder the white shape on the dressing case. “Soul of a camel!” he
cried. “What is that?”
“A little surprise that we have for the bride,” answered Carolina,
advancing and raising the window shade. “A wedding present, in fact.
_Eccolo!_”
She drew off the veil quickly, and the Last Lady stood revealed in the
streaming sunlight.
“By the Egg of Columbus!”
Every eye turned from the marble Juno to the Juno of flesh and blood.
She had let fall the counterfeit blossoms that the signore had just
placed in her hand, but gave no other token of disquiet. A glow of
admiration lit up her face as she gazed steadily at her double in stone.
“It is really beautiful,” she said calmly, moving nearer. “I knew I
should look well in marble.”
She passed one hand behind the bust as though to judge it by the sense
of touch, but before any one could hinder she lifted it to the window
sill and sent it somersaulting into the rear court. The crash brought a
score of heads to the lower windows, and the guests set up a cry that
disaster had again visited the wedding of Signor Di Bello.
“_Infame! infame!_” chorused Carolina, Armando, and Marianna when
they looked out and beheld the Last Lady in a dozen pieces on the
flagstones, while the bridegroom merely laughed, for it seemed to him a
capital joke.
Juno was quick to follow her prompt action with suitable words. “You
dogs of Genovese!” she said, sweeping the company with her flashing
eyes. “Do you like the bust now? Did you think I would stand still and
be made a fool of, or that I would fall down and weep?” Then, turning
to Carolina, “And you, Signorina Old Maid, you are a large piece of
stupidity.”
“Ha! You do not like my present!” said Carolina, ready for the combat.
“That is a grand pity. But, mark you, on her wedding day a _married_
maid must be suited to her heart’s full desire. I will give you another
present--yes, a present that every married maid must have. Do you
guess? No? How strange!” She went into the hall and called, “Bertino!”
Instantly he darted in and stood panting before his wife. “Here is the
other present, my married maid--your husband!”
At the same moment there arose from the parlour a tumult of voices, and
Angelica entered and said that the priest had arrived.
“Are you her husband?” groaned Signor Di Bello, his hope all gone.
“Yes,” Bertino answered, glaring at Juno. “She is my wife, the viper!
She put me up to stabbing you, my uncle. She told me you annoyed her;
that she did not want you. But she shall pay!” he cried, waving his
hand above his head. “Do you hear, you Neapolitan thief? You shall pay.
After that to inferno with you, and may you remain there as long as it
takes a crab to go round the world! _Figlia_ of a priest! Wolf of----”
“Stop!” broke in Signor Di Bello. Going up to Juno, he asked
mournfully, “Is he your husband?”
She answered, tossing her head: “He says so. Let him prove it.”
Signor Di Bello grasped the other end of the straw. “Ah, yes; prove
it,” he roared, while Carolina smiled snugly, for she had looked to it
that the properties for this scene were not lacking.
“You want proof?” asked Bertino. “Well, it is here.” He drew a marriage
certificate from his pocket.
Signor Di Bello seized the document and cast his eye over it. The
disorder below had redoubled, and with the noisy demands for the bride
and groom were mingled derisive shouts of “Long live the Genovese
bachelor!” and “Another fiasco!”
“Soul of the moon! It is true!” breathed Di Bello, crunching the paper
in style theatrical.
“Bah!” returned Juno, moving near to him and putting her hand on his
arm. “You believe that?”
“Believe me, then, signori,” spoke up a strange voice, in grammatical
but English-bred Italian. It was the priest from over the border of
Mulberry, who had come upstairs to learn the reason of the delay and
heard the last few lines of the dialogue--the priest whom Signor Di
Bello had engaged because he would not meddle. Turning to Juno he
continued: “I had the honour, signora, of marrying you to this man.”
“_Padre!_” exclaimed Bertino, who knew him at once for the clergyman he
had sought out so hurriedly at the rectory in Second Avenue that day
when, to outwit his uncle--black the hour!--he had taken Juno to wife.
“I know him not,” said Juno, turning to Signor Di Bello, who had
dropped into a chair. But her game of bluff was lost. “Go!” the grocer
said to her, pointing to the door.
She moved to the threshold, turned about, spat into the room, and said,
“May you all die cross-eyed!”--a Neapolitan figure that means “Be
hanged to you!” since the gallows bird squints when the noose tightens.
Then she rustled downstairs, mindful of her purple skirts. Bertino
would have been at her heels but for Carolina, who caught his arm.
“Wait,” she whispered. “This is not the time or place.”
“No matter!” he cried, shaking off her hold. “She shall pay, she shall
pay!”
The sight of Juno’s yellow boots on the staircase served to quiet the
troubled parlour for a brief moment, the people thinking that the
bride and groom were coming at last. But she had seen the stiletto in
her husband’s eye, and was out of the door, into the waiting coupé,
and driving off at high speed before the first families had wholly
grasped the scandalous fact. Next moment there was another flying
exit, and Bertino went tearing after the carriage. This was the signal
for unheard-of insults to Casa Di Bello. The men set up a sirocco of
hisses, and the women shouted mock bravoes for the twice-brideless
groom. During the uproar Alessandro the Macaroni Presser led a
push-and-grab attack on a side table heaped with the kaleidoscopic
dainties with which Mulberry loves to tickle its eye as well as its
gullet.
“_Dio tremendo!_” whimpered Signor Di Bello, the tumult downstairs
assailing his ears. “What a disgrace! what a disgrace!”
It was Carolina’s cue, and she snapped it up. In a few quick words she
unmasked the marital climax her drama was meant to produce.
“Disgrace?” she said. “What need of disgrace, my brother? Are not the
guests here, is the feast not waiting, also the priest, and the bride
ready?”
“The bride?”
“Yes, and one that is worth a hundred--nay, a thousand--of the baggage
that you have lost; the bride that I have brought you all the way from
Cardinali. Hear those cattle below, how they bellow and stamp on your
name! But my bride can shut their ugly mouths. Here is the young and
sympathetic Marianna.”
She turned slightly and beckoned Marianna to her side, but the girl
remained where she was, hand in hand with Armando.
“No, no,” said Marianna, recoiling.
“Bah! She is young, my brother, and does not know what she wants. Can’t
you see that if you are not married at once the colony will always
despise you? Never again shall you hold up your head.”
“But the people will know just the same that I have been put in a
sack,” groaned Di Bello.
“Listen,” said Carolina, putting a finger beside her nose shrewdly.
“Those people are fools. They will believe anything you say, if only
you go before them with a bride. Let it be one of your famous jokes. A
little surprise you have prepared for your dear friends. Naturally,
they had you betrothed to the wrong woman, for that was all a part
of the joke. You laugh at them then. You laugh last. How silly they
will feel! What merriment! Ah! they will say it is Signor Di Bello’s
grandest joke!”
“By the stars of heaven, I will!” cried the grocer.--“Here, my pretty
Marianna, do you wish to be a happy wife?”
“Yes,” the girl answered, nestling closer to Armando, “but--but not
yours.”
The priest, looking out of the window, shook his sides.
“You must be his!” said Carolina, catching hold of her arm and striving
to drag her away from Armando.
“She shall not!” cried the sculptor, placing an arm about Marianna,
authority in his eye and voice. “Take off your hand. No one else shall
have her.”
“Bravo!” exclaimed Signor Di Bello. “Let the pigs squeal. I am not a
man to marry a girl against her will.”
Carolina’s colour ran the scale of red and white, her fingers writhed,
and her eyes set upon Armando’s curling hair. She saw the curtain
ringing down on her self-serving drama, and the cherished _dénouement_
left out. In her fury she would have tested the roots of the sculptor’s
locks, but the priest stepped between them, and raised his hand.
“Signorina,” he said, his voice a distinct note of calm above the
storm below, “if you sincerely desire to save your brother from the
contempt of his neighbours it may be done better by the union of these
young hearts than by tearing them asunder. Let us consider. You speak
of the merry jest.” Here the good man’s eyes twinkled his zest in the
wholesome trick to be played. “Would it not be a greater joke if the
people found that they had betrothed not alone the wrong bride, but the
wrong groom as well; in fact, had come to the marriage of one couple
only to find another walk into the parlour with the priest?”
For a moment no one caught his meaning. Then he went on, with equal
countenance: “What I mean is that you silence the tongue of scandal by
having a wedding at once, with this pair of turtle-doves as the bride
and groom.”
“Bravo!” Signor Di Bello whooped, grasping the priest’s hand. “Indeed
a famous joke. I will tell them that it was all fun about my getting
married; that it was to be my foster niece and her sweetheart all the
time. Ah, the side-splitting joke!”
“Come, then,” said the priest, without waiting for Carolina’s approval;
and the joyous Armando and Marianna, with Signor Di Bello last in the
procession, followed him to the parlour.
Carolina did not go downstairs, but turned into her sanctum, and
with flooding eyes looked out on San Patrizio’s graveyard. She heard
the muffled outburst of wonder that greeted the bridal twain in the
parlour, and alert was her ear to the growing quiet that became
silence when the priest began the nuptial rites. Soon the merriment
of the feast rang beneath her feet. Plainly the lying joke was a great
success. Ah! what a fine _vendetta_ it would be to go down there and
tell them all the truth--even now while her brother was cracking
walnuts on his head and making the table roar! But no; of strife she
was weary. She longed for peace--for the peace that lay beyond that
gray forest of mortuary shafts; the peace beyond that rectory door,
to which the latch string beckoned and a soft voice, clear above the
revelry, seemed calling: “_Perpetua, perpetua, riposo, pace._”
* * * * *
When Armando, with one hundred dollars in his pocket--the grateful
tribute of Signor Di Bello--went to Banca Tomato to buy two
second-class tickets for Genoa, the banker led him behind the nankeen
sail--sewed together again by Bridget--and whispered that Bertino would
be on the same ship in the steerage.
“Did she pay?” asked the sculptor.
“No, not all: a cut on the cheek; a clumsy thrust, dealt in a dark
alley, where he waited for her all night. But mark you, the fool wanted
to stay, to go back--to make her pay more--to pay all. He is not
satisfied; and in truth I do not blame him. She ought to pay all.”
“_Si_--all.”
“But how could he go back to her, where a dozen man-hunters are
waiting? They have been here, the loons, to see if he bought a ticket.
They will not find him. He will stay where he is until--until it is
time to go on the ship. Ah, my friend, it was grand trouble to make him
do this. He was for going back to her--to the man-hunters. But I gave
him the light of a wise proverb, and he saw: Better an egg to-day than
a hen to-morrow.”
[Illustration: _The End._]
FÉLIX GRAS’S ROMANCES.
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novelists.”--_Chicago Tribune._
“We can cordially eulogize the splendid vitality of the work, its
brilliancy, its pathos, its polished and crystalline style, and its
remarkable character-painting.”--_New York Home Journal._
_MONA MACLEAN, Medical Student._ 12mo, paper, 50 cents; cloth, $1.00.
“A high-bred comedy.”--_New York Times._
“‘Mona Maclean’ is a bright, healthful, winning story.”--_New York
Mail and Express._
“Mona is a very attractive person, and her story is decidedly well
told.”--_San Francisco Argonaut._
“A pleasure in store for you if you have not read this volume. The
author has given us a thoroughly natural series of events, and drawn
her characters like an artist. It is the story of a woman’s struggles
with her own soul. She is a woman of resource, a strong woman, and her
career is interesting from beginning to end.”--_New York Herald._
_FELLOW TRAVELLERS._ 12mo, paper, 50 cents; cloth, $1.00.
“The stories are well told; the literary style is above the average,
and the character drawing is to be particularly praised....
Altogether, the little book is a model of its kind, and its reading
will give pleasure to people of taste.”--_Boston Saturday Evening
Gazette._
“‘Fellow Travellers’ is a collection of very brightly written tales,
all dealing, as the title implies, with the mutual relations of people
thrown together casually while traveling.”--_London Saturday Review._
BOOKS BY ALLEN RAINE.
Each, 12mo, cloth, $1.00; paper, 50 cents.
Garthowen: A Welsh Idyl.
“Wales has long waited for her novelist, but he seems to have come at
last in the person of Mr. Allen Raine, who has at once proved himself
a worthy interpreter and exponent of the romantic spirit of his
country.”--_London Daily Mail._
By Berwen Banks.
“Mr. Raine enters into the lives and traditions of the people, and
herein lies the charm of his stories.”--_Chicago Tribune._
“Interesting from the beginning, and grows more so as it
proceeds.”--_San Francisco Bulletin._
“It has the same grace of style, strength of description, and dainty
sweetness of its predecessors.”--_Boston Saturday Evening Gazette._
Torn Sails.
“It is a little idyl of humble life and enduring love, laid bare before
us, very real and pure, which in its telling shows us some strong
points of Welsh character--the pride, the hasty temper, the quick
dying out of wrath.... We call this a well-written story, interesting
alike through its romance and its glimpses into another life than
ours.”--_Detroit Free Press._
“Allen Raine’s work is in the right direction and worthy of all
honor.”--_Boston Budget._
Mifanwy: A Welsh Singer.
“Simple in all its situations, the story is worked up in that touching
and quaint strain which never grows wearisome no matter how often the
lights and shadows of love are introduced. It rings true, and does not
tax the imagination.”--_Boston Herald._
“One of the most charming tales that has come to us of late.”--_Brooklyn
Eagle._
BY ELEANOR STUART.
Averages.
A Novel of Modern New York. 12mo. Cloth, $1.50.
“To picture a scheming woman who is also attractive and even lovable
is not an easy task.... To have made such a woman plausible and real
in the midst of modern New York life is what Miss Stuart has achieved
in this novel. And the other characters reach a similar reality.
They are individuals and not types, and, moreover, they are not
literary echoes. For a writer to manage this assortment of original
characters with that cool deliberation which keeps aloof from them,
but remorselessly pictures them, is a proof of literary insight
and literary skill. It takes work as well as talent. The people of
the story are real, plausible, modern creatures, with the fads and
weaknesses of to-day.”--_N. Y. Life._
“The strength of the book is its entertaining pictures of human nature
and its shrewd, incisive observations upon the social problems, great
and small, which present themselves in the complex life of society in
the metropolis. Those who are fond of dry wit, a subtle humor, and
what Emerson calls ‘a philosophy of insight and not of tradition,’
will find ‘Averages’ a novel to their taste.... There are interesting
love episodes and clever, original situations. An author capable of
such work is to be reckoned with. She has in her the root of the
matter.”--_N. Y. Mail and Express._
Stonepastures.
12mo. Cloth, 75 cents.
“The story is strongly written, there being a decided Bronte flavor
about its style and English. It is thoroughly interesting and
extremely vivid in its portrayal of actual life.”--_Boston Courier._
BY ELLEN THORNEYCROFT FOWLER.
_A DOUBLE THREAD._ 12mo. Cloth, $1.50.
“The excellence of her writing makes ... her book delightful reading.
She is genial and sympathetic without being futile, and witty without
being cynical.”--_Literature, London, Eng._
“Will attract a host of readers.... The great charm about Miss
Fowler’s writing is its combination of brilliancy and kindness....
Miss Fowler has all the arts. She disposes of her materials in
a perfectly workmanlike manner. Her tale is well proportioned,
everything is in its place, and the result is thoroughly
pleasing.”--_Claudius Clear, in the British Weekly._
“An excellent novel in every sense of the word, and Miss Ellen
Thorneycroft Fowler is to be congratulated on having made a most
distinct and momentous advance.”--_London Telegraph._
“We have learned to expect good things from the writer of ‘Concerning
Isabel Carnaby,’ and we are not disappointed. Her present venture
has all the cleverness and knowledge of life that distinguished its
predecessor.”--_London Daily News._
_CONCERNING ISABEL CARNABY._ No. 252, Appletons’ Town and Country
Library. 12mo. Cloth, $1.00; paper, 50 cents.
“Rarely does one find such a charming combination of wit and
tenderness, of brilliancy, and reverence for the things that
matter.... It is bright without being flippant, tender without being
mawkish, and as joyous and as wholesome as sunshine. The characters
are closely studied and clearly limned, and they are created by one
who knows human nature.... It would be hard to find its superior for
all-around excellence.... No one who reads it will regret it or forget
it.”--_Chicago Tribune._
“For brilliant conversations, epigrammatic bits of philosophy,
keenness of wit, and full insight into human nature, ‘Concerning
Isabel Carnaby’ is a remarkable success.”--_Boston Transcript._
“An excellent novel, clever and witty enough to be very amusing, and
serious enough to provide much food for thought.”--_London Daily
Telegraph._
TWO SUCCESSFUL AMERICAN NOVELS.
_LATITUDE 19°._ A Romance of the West Indies in the Year of our Lord
1820. Being a faithful account and true, of the painful adventures of
the Skipper, the Bo’s’n, the Smith, the Mate, and Cynthia. By Mrs.
SCHUYLER CROWNINSHIELD. Illustrated. 12mo. Cloth, $1.50.
“‘Latitude 19°’ is a novel of incident, of the open air, of the sea,
the shore, the mountain eyrie, and of breathing, living entities,
who deal with Nature at first hand.... The adventures described are
peculiarly novel and interesting.... Packed with incidents, infused
with humor and wit, and faithful to the types introduced, this book
will surely appeal to the large audience already won, and beget new
friends among those who believe in fiction that is healthy without
being maudlin, and is strong without losing the truth.”--_New York
Herald._
“A story filled with rapid and exciting action from the first page to
the last. A fecundity of invention that never lags, and a judiciously
used vein of humor.”--_The Critic._
“A volume of deep, undeniable charm. A unique book from a fresh, sure,
vigorous pen.”--_Boston Journal._
“Adventurous and romantic enough to satisfy the most exacting
reader.... Abounds in situations which make the blood run cold,
and yet, full of surprises as it is, one is continually amazed by
the plausibility of the main incidents of the narrative.... A very
successful effort to portray the sort of adventures that might have
taken place in the West Indies seventy-five or eighty years ago....
Very entertaining with its dry humor.”--_Boston Herald._
_A HERALD OF THE WEST._ An American Story of 1811-1815. By J. A.
ALTSHELER, author of “A Soldier of Manhattan” and “The Sun of
Saratoga.” 12mo. Cloth, $1.50.
“‘A Herald of the West’ is a romance of our history which has not
been surpassed in dramatic force, vivid coloring, and historical
interest.... In these days when the flush of war has only just
passed, the book ought to find thousands of readers, for it teaches
patriotism without intolerance, and it shows, what the war with Spain
has demonstrated anew, the power of the American people when they are
deeply roused by some great wrong.”--_San Francisco Chronicle._
“The book throughout is extremely well written. It is condensed,
vivid, picturesque.... A rattling good story, and unrivaled in fiction
for its presentation of the American feeling toward England during our
second conflict.”--_Boston Herald._
“Holds the attention continuously.... The book abounds in thrilling
attractions.... It is a solid and dignified acquisition to the
romantic literature of our own country, built around facts and real
persons.”--_Chicago Times-Herald._
“In a style that is strong and broad, the author of this timely novel
takes up a nascent period of our national history and founds upon it a
story of absorbing interest.”--_Philadelphia Item._
“Mr. Altsheler has given us an accurate as well as picturesque
portrayal of the social and political conditions which prevailed in
the republic in the era made famous by the second war with Great
Britain.”--_Brooklyn Eagle._
BY A. CONAN DOYLE.
Uniform edition, 12mo. Cloth, $1.50 per volume.
_A DUET, WITH AN OCCASIONAL CHORUS._
“Charming is the one word to describe this volume adequately. Dr.
Doyle’s crisp style and his rare wit and refined humor, utilized with
cheerful art that is perfect of its kind, fill these chapters with joy
and gladness for the reader.”--_Philadelphia Press._
“Bright, brave, simple, natural, delicate. It is the most artistic
and most original thing that its author has done.... We can heartily
recommend ‘A Duet’ to all classes of readers. It is a good book to
put into the hands of the young of either sex. It will interest the
general reader, and it should delight the critic, for it is a work of
art. This story taken with the best of his previous work gives Dr.
Doyle a very high place in modern letters.”--_Chicago Times-Herald._
_UNCLE BERNAC. A Romance of the Empire._
“Simple, clear, and well defined.... Spirited in movement all the
way through.... A fine example of clear analytical force.”--_Boston
Herald._
_THE EXPLOITS OF BRIGADIER GERARD._
_A Romance of the Life of a Typical Napoleonic Soldier._
“Good, stirring tales are they.... Remind one of those adventures
indulged in by ‘The Three Musketeers.’... Written with a dash and
swing that here and there carry one away.”--_New York Mail and
Express._
RODNEY STONE.
“A notable and very brilliant work of genius.”--_London Speaker._
“Dr. Doyle’s novel is crowded with an amazing amount of incident and
excitement.... He does not write history, but shows us the human side
of his great men, living and moving in an atmosphere charged with the
spirit of the hard-living, hard-fighting Anglo-Saxon.”--_New York
Critic._
_ROUND THE RED LAMP._
_Being Facts and Fancies of Medical Life._
“A strikingly realistic and decidedly original contribution to modern
literature.”--_Boston Saturday Evening Gazette._
_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.
“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._
BY S. R. CROCKETT.
Uniform edition. Each, 12mo, cloth, $1.50.
_THE STANDARD BEARER._ An Historical Romance.
“Mr. Crockett’s book is distinctly one of _the_ books of the year.
Five months of 1898 have passed without bringing to the reviewers’
desk anything to be compared with it in beauty of description,
convincing characterization, absorbing plot and humorous appeal. The
freshness and sweet sincerity of the tale are most invigorating,
and that the book will be very much read there is no possible
doubt.”--_Boston Budget._
“The book will move to tears, provoke to laughter, stir the blood, and
evoke heroisms of history, making the reading of it a delight and the
memory of it a stimulus and a joy.”--_New York Evangelist._
_LADS’ LOVE._ Illustrated.
“It seems to us that there is in this latest product much of the
realism of personal experience. However modified and disguised, it
is hardly possible to think that the writer’s personality does not
present itself in Saunders McQuhirr.... Rarely has the author drawn
more truly from life than in the cases of Nance and ‘the Hempie’;
never more typical Scotsman of the humble sort than the farmer Peter
Chrystie.”--_London Athenæum._
_CLEG KELLY, ARAB OF THE CITY. His Progress and Adventures._
Illustrated.
“A masterpiece which Mark Twain himself has never rivaled.... If
there ever was an ideal character in fiction it is this heroic
ragamuffin.”--_London Daily Chronicle._
“In no one of his books does Mr. Crockett give us a brighter or more
graphic picture of contemporary Scotch life than in ‘Cleg Kelly.’...
It is one of the great books.”--_Boston Daily Advertiser._
_BOG-MYRTLE AND PEAT._ Third edition.
“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._
“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._
_THE LILAC SUNBONNET._ Eighth edition.
“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 love
story half so sweet has been written this year it has escaped our
notice.”--_New York Times._
“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._
BY ALBERT LEE.
12mo. Cloth. $1.00; paper, 50 cents.
IN APPLETONS’ TOWN AND COUNTRY LIBRARY.
The Gentleman Pensioner.
The scene of this admirable historical romance is laid in the
tumultuous England of the sixteenth century, at the time when the
plots of the partisans of Mary Stuart against Elizabeth seemed to be
approaching a culmination. The hero, Queen Elizabeth’s confidential
messenger, has a trust to execute which involves a thrilling series of
adventures. This stirring romance has been compared to “A Gentleman of
France,” and it is safe to say that no reader will find in its pages
any reason for flagging interest or will relinquish the book until the
last page has been reached.
The Key of the Holy House.
A Romance of Old Antwerp.
“A romance of Antwerp in the days of the Spanish oppression. Mr. Lee
handles it in vigorous fashion.”--_London Spectator._
“This is a fascinating specimen of the historical romance at its
best, the romance which infuses energetic life into the dry facts of
history.”--_Philadelphia Press._
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, NEW YORK.
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES:
--Seene, on page 110, has been changed to scene.
--Bench, on page 153, has been changed to Bunch.
--Lateen, on page 86, has been changed to nankeen, to match the
later description of the sail.
--The redundant no on page 247 has been removed.
--Dialect has not been regularized across this e-book.
--Spelling and hyphenation have been rendered as typeset.