_THE ATTIC GUEST_
_A NOVEL_
_By_
_ROBERT E. KNOWLES_
_Author of "The Web of Time"
"St. Cuthbert's" etc._
_New York Chicago Toronto
Fleming H. Revell Company
London and Edinburgh_
Copyright, 1909, by
FLEMING H. REVELL COMPANY
New York: 158 Fifth Avenue
Chicago: 80 Wabash Avenue
Toronto: 25 Richmond Street, W.
London: 21 Paternoster Square
Edinburgh: 100 Princes Street
_To
My Father_
_FOREWORD_
This story, which the authoress herself entitled "The Attic Guest,"
would probably have never been given to the world but for an incidental
visit which I paid to a certain manse. It was then and there that the
following chapters, now first presented to the public, were entrusted
to my hands. The hands which placed the manuscript in my own were
those of a lady of much charm, modest, cultured, winsome; and no one
could know her without feeling that her qualities of heart were even
greater than of intellect. She was a minister's wife, as I need hardly
say; and the busy years in that most mellow of all vineyards had given
her face much of its own spiritual beauty, something of the deep
harvest-joy shining through her eyes. Tranquil eyes were hers,
chastened by many a sorrow, yet aglow with a native merriment that the
stern schooling of a lifetime seemed powerless to subdue.
She asked that I would read her story; "and send it forth," said she,
"if your heart approve."
Her plea for asking this service at my hands was that I had had some
humble association with the world of letters. Mayhap she thought this
pleased me well--and perhaps it did. I urged her to send her book
forth with her own name upon it--but this she firmly refused. She
shrank from the publicity it would involve, she said, as must any
Southern lady. I believed her implicitly. "Especially," she went
on--dwelling earnestly on this--"since my book is the frank and artless
story of the most sacred things of life, of a woman's life at that.
Some will smile," said she, "and some deride, and many disbelieve; but
the story is the story of my inmost work and life and love. Let it see
the light if you think it worthy."