AS AFORETIME
John Harcourt had asked Bess for a drive--a farewell view, he told her,
of Capitol Vista, Rock Creek Park, the Zoo, and all the rest. He said it
so cheerfully and with such unchecked flow of spirits that Bess,
smothering an inward sob, summoned her woman's pride and matched his
exhilaration with her own. But if the truth were known, and the truth is
never known under just these circumstances to anybody or anything but
the girl's inmost soul, she was feeling far from gay.
Life seemed to be disintegrating. Margaret and Philip were on the ocean;
Rosalie, in Oak Hill Cemetery; the little boy given into her
grandmother's keeping until the house on Massachusetts Avenue should be
re-opened; and--after all this was the worst--they were going home to
Missouri. Her life in Washington was over! Well,--it had been a
beautiful time that she had had, she thought with a tightening of the
throat, and he, more than anybody else, had made it so. She should
always feel grateful to him and love him for that--as a friend. Of
course she was nothing to him but a child. And the tightness grew to a
lump.
She was putting into her trunk a book of views he had brought her--"to
remember him by," he had said. She turned the pages listlessly. It did
seem too hard that they should have to go home just now! Washington was
so beautiful in May, everybody said. A drop fell on the classic columns
of the Treasury Building--another--and another. She really could not
tell now though she was looking at it so hard whether the pillars were
Corinthian or Ionic. She was thinking, "It was on these steps we stood
that day--"
Strange! strange! how little architecture, art, affairs of State or
Nation are to a young girl whose heart is saying, "And I must leave
him."
* * * * *
From that ride she came back to her grandmother with softly shining eyes
and the sweet tale that has been told and told and told again since Time
was young.... And--would her grandma be willing to give her to him?
"But, Bess, I thought you felt that you could never trust yourself to
any man after Margaret's experience?"
Bess answered earnestly.
"Grandma! I wouldn't to anybody in the _world_ but Mr. Harcourt. But it
is different with him, you know."
When she was gone Mrs. Pennybacker took off her glasses and wiped them.
"As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without
end," she said reverently, "Amen."
BOOKS BY GROSSET & DUNLAP
Handsomely bound in cloth. Price, 75 cents per volume, postpaid.
THE KINDRED OF THE WILD. A Book of Animal Life. With illustrations
by Charles Livingston Bull.
Appeals alike to the young and to the merely youthful-hearted. Close
observation. Graphic description. We get a sense of the great wild and
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instead of the museum. John Burroughs says "The volume is in many ways
the most brilliant collection of Animal Stories that has appeared. It
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THE HEART OF THE ANCIENT WOOD. Illustrated.
This book strikes a new note in literature. It is a realistic romance of
the folk of the forest--a romance of the alliance of peace between a
pioneer's daughter in the depths of the ancient wood and the wild beasts
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THE WATCHERS OF THE TRAILS. A companion volume to the "Kindred of
the Wild." With 48 full page plates and decorations from drawings by
Charles Livingston Bull.
These stories are exquisite in their refinement, and yet robust in their
appreciation of some of the rougher phases of woodcraft. "This is a book
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graphic illustrations, which in fashion all their own tell the story of
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RED FOX. The Story of His Adventurous Career in the Ringwaak Wilds,
and His Triumphs over the Enemies of His Kind. With 50
illustrations, including frontispiece in color and cover design by
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A brilliant chapter in natural history. Infinitely more wholesome
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NEDRA, by George Barr McCutcheon, with color frontispiece, and other
illustrations by Harrison Fisher.
The story of an elopement of a young couple from Chicago, who decide to
go to London, travelling as brother and sister. Their difficulties
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gives an account of their finding some of the other passengers, and the
circumstances which resulted from the strange mix-up.
POWER LOT, by Sarah P. McLean Greene. Illustrated.
The story of the reformation of a man and his restoration to
self-respect through the power of honest labor, the exercise of honest
independence, and the aid of clean, healthy, out-of-door life and
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The dear old story has never been more lovingly and artistically told.
MY MAMIE ROSE. The History of My Regeneration, by Owen Kildare.
Illustrated.
This _autobiography_ is a powerful book of love and sociology. Reads
like the strangest fiction. Is the strongest truth and deals with the
story of a man's redemption through a woman's love and devotion.
JOHN BURT, by Frederick Upham Adams, with illustrations.
John Burt, a New England lad, goes West to seek his fortune and finds it
in gold mining. He becomes one of the financial factors and pitilessly
crushes his enemies. The story of the Stock Exchange manipulations was
never more vividly and engrossingly told. A love story runs through the
book, and is handled with infinite skill.
THE HEART LINE, by Gelett Burgess, with halftone illustrations by
Lester Ralph, and inlay cover in colors.
A great dramatic story of the city that was. A story of Bohemian life in
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Compressed into it are all the sparkle, all the gayety, all the wild,
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CAROLINA LEE. By Lillian Bell. With frontispiece by Dora Wheeler
Keith.
Carolina Lee is the Uncle Tom's Cabin of Christian Science. Its keynote
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A Christian Science novel that will bring delight to the heart of every
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HILMA, by William Tillinghast Eldridge, with illustrations by
Harrison Fisher and Martin Justice, and inlay cover.
It is a rattling good tale, written with charm, and full of remarkable
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contagious enthusiasm. The story gives us the _Graustark_ and _The
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It will hold the fiction lover close to every page.
THE MYSTERY OF THE FOUR FINGERS, by Fred M. White, with halftone
illustrations by Will Grefe.
A fabulously rich gold mine in Mexico is known by the picturesque and
mysterious name of _The Four Fingers_. It originally belonged to an
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man possessing wonderful occult power. Should any person unlawfully
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and one by one returned to him. The appearance of the final fourth
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Surprises, strange and startling, are concealed in every chapter of this
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tragedy holds one in rapt attention to the end. And through it runs the
thread of a curious love story.
MEREDITH NICHOLSON'S FASCINATING ROMANCES
Handsomely bound in cloth. Price, 75 cents per volume, postpaid.
THE HOUSE OF A THOUSAND CANDLES. With a frontispiece in colors by
Howard Chandler Christy.
A novel of romance and adventure, of love and valor, of mystery and
hidden treasure. The hero is required to spend a whole year in the
isolated house, which according to his grandfather's will shall then
become his. If the terms of the will be violated the house goes to a
young woman whom the will, furthermore, forbids him to marry. Nobody can
guess the secret, and the whole plot moves along with an exciting zip.
THE PORT OF MISSING MEN. With illustrations by Clarence F.
Underwood.
There is romance of love, mystery, plot, and fighting, and a breathless
dash and go about the telling which makes one quite forget about the
improbabilities of the story; and it all ends in the old-fashioned
healthy American way. Shirley is a sweet, courageous heroine whose
shining eyes lure from page to page.
ROSALIND AT REDGATE. Illustrated by Arthur I. Keller.
The author of "The House of a Thousand Candles" has here given us a
bouyant romance brimming with lively humor and optimism; with mystery
that breeds adventure and ends in love and happiness. A most
entertaining and delightful book.
THE MAIN CHANCE. With illustrations by Harrison Fisher.
A "traction deal" in a Western city is the pivot about which the action
of this clever story revolves. But it is in the character-drawing of the
principals that the author's strength lies. Exciting incidents develop
their inherent strength and weaknesses, and if virtue wins in the end,
it is quite in keeping with its carefully-planned antecedents. The N. Y.
_Sun_ says: "We commend it for its workmanship--for its smoothness, its
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ZELDA DAMERON. With portraits of the characters by John Cecil Clay.
"A picture of the new West, at once startlingly and attractively
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people."--_Boston Transcript._
AGNES AND EGERTON CASTLE
Handsomely bound in cloth. Price, 75 cents per volume, postpaid.
THE PRIDE OF JENNICO. Being a Memoir of Captain Basil Jennico.
"What separates it from most books of its class is its distinction of
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fervent charm of its love passages. It is a very attractive piece of
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stirring, brilliant and dashing story."--_The Outlook._
THE SECRET ORCHARD. Illustrated by Charles D. Williams.
The "Secret Orchard" is set in the midst of the ultra modern society.
The scene is in Paris, but most of the characters are English speaking.
The story was dramatized in London, and in it the Kendalls scored a
great theatrical success.
"Artfully contrived and full of romantic charm ... it possesses
ingenuity of incident, a figurative designation of the unhallowed scenes
in which unlicensed love accomplishes and wrecks faith and
happiness."--_Athenaeum._
YOUNG APRIL. With illustrations by A. B. Wenzell.
"It is everything that a good romance should be, and it carries about it
an air of distinction both rare and delightful."--_Chicago Tribune._
"With regret one turns to the last page of this delightful novel, so
delicate in its romance, so brilliant in its episodes, so sparkling in
its art, and so exquisite in its diction."--_Worcester Spy._
FLOWER O' THE ORANGE. With frontispiece.
We have learned to expect from these fertile authors novels graceful in
form, brisk in movement, and romantic in conception. This carries the
reader back to the days of the bewigged and beruffled gallants of the
seventeenth century and tells him of feats of arms and adventures in
love as thrilling and picturesque, yet delicate, as the utmost seeker of
romance may ask.
MY MERRY ROCKHURST. Illustrated by Arthur E. Becher.
In the eight stories of a courtier of King Charles Second, which are
here gathered together, the Castles are at their best, reviving all the
fragrant charm of those books, like _The Pride of Jennico_, in which
they first showed an instinct, amounting to genius, for sunny romances.
"The book is absorbing ... and is as spontaneous in feeling as it is
artistic in execution."--_New York Tribune._
THE CATTLE BARON'S DAUGHTER. A Novel. By Harold Bindloss. With
illustrations by David Ericson.
A story of the fight for the cattle-ranges of the West. Intense interest
is aroused by its pictures of life in the cattle country at that
critical moment of transition when the great tracts of land used for
grazing were taken up by the incoming homesteaders, with the inevitable
result of fierce contest, of passionate emotion on both sides, and of
final triumph of the inevitable tendency of the times.
WINSTON OF THE PRAIRIE. With illustrations in color by W. Herbert
Dunton.
A man of upright character, young and clean, but badly worsted in the
battle of life, consents as a desperate resort to impersonate for a
period a man of his own age--scoundrelly in character but of an
aristocratic and moneyed family. The better man finds himself barred
from resuming his old name. How, coming into the other man's
possessions, he wins the respect of all men, and the love of a
fastidious, delicately nurtured girl, is the thread upon which the story
hangs. It is one of the best novels of the West that has appeared for
years.
THAT MAINWARING AFFAIR. By A. Maynard Barbour. With illustrations by
E. Plaisted Abbott.
A novel with a most intricate and carefully unraveled plot. A naturally
probable and excellently developed story and the reader will follow the
fortunes of each character with unabating interest ... the interest is
keen at the close of the first chapter and increases to the end.
AT THE TIME APPOINTED. With a frontispiece in colors by J. H.
Marchand.
The fortunes of a young mining engineer who through an accident loses
his memory and identity. In his new character and under his new name,
the hero lives a new life of struggle and adventure. The volume will be
found highly entertaining by those who appreciate a thoroughly good
story.
Transcriber's Notes:
Missing or obscured punctuation was corrected.
Typographical errors were silently corrected.
Spelling and hyphenation were made consistent when a predominant form
was found in this book; otherwise it was not changed.
Text in italics is enclosed by underscores (_italics_).
End of Project Gutenberg's A Modern Madonna, by Caroline Abbot Stanley