Let me go back a little in this retrospect, into which I am compelling
into a small space much that would take time in the telling, as a
necessary retrenchment for too much affluence of description in the
beginning.
The mind of the narrator, like the stone descending the shaft, gathers
accelerated velocity with its momentum toward the last, and so expends
itself in a more brief and sententious manner than in the commencement.
It should be also, but rarely is, more powerful, and more condensed as
it nears its _finale_.
Why these things do _not_ go more uniformly together, as according to
popular opinion they invariably must, is better understood by the artist
than his readers.
Details are requisite to fill up a mental picture, and impress it on the
memory, and, though brevity is certainly the soul of wit, it cannot be
said to be infallible in enforcing description to do its duty--that of
painting a panoramic picture on the brain.
Life is full of pre-Raphaelitism, and so is fiction, if indeed it
resembles life--such as we know it, or such as it might be. The art of
verisimilitude is found alone in detail.
Let me go back, then, for a brief summary of some of the principal
events and personages of Monfort Hall and Beauseincourt, the earlier
portions of this retrospect. I will begin with the La Vignes.
George Gaston, in one of the brief pauses of his stormy political
career, wooed and married Margaret La Vigne, the year before her mother
espoused in second nuptials her early lover (the brother of that saintly
minister who came to her rescue in the first days of her widowhood), and
in this marriage she has been happy and prosperous.
They continue to reside under the same roof, and Bellevue awaits its
master. It will be empty, I think, if I understand George Gaston's
character, so long as Major Favraud is a wanderer on the face of the
Continent of Europe, and held, for his especial benefit and return, in
readiness.
Vernon and his sweet wife Marion spent the first season of their happy
married life under my lintel-tree, and are now our nearest neighbors in
our new land of sojourn. A slender iron fence divides our grounds from
theirs. A golden cord of affection binds our lives together. Our
interests, too, are the same.
Vernon is leagued with my husband in the great engineering projects
which have enriched them both--the capital to enlist in which sphere of
enterprise was furnished by the sale to a company of our "gold-gashed"
lands in Georgia--revealed to my knowledge, as it may be remembered, by
the inadvertence of Gregory.
The career of Bertie La Vigne had been a varied one, as might have been
foreseen perhaps from her early manifestations and proclivities.
She came to me, while still we dwelt in the city of my birth, when she
was approaching her seventeenth year, and remained a twelvemonth under
my roof, engaged in the study of Shakespeare with that accomplished
_artiste_ Mr. Mortimer. She intended to pursue what gift she had of
voice and histrionic talent as a means of livelihood, she told me from
the first, and to get rid of the ineffable weariness and monotony of her
life at Beauseincourt as well.
The two motives seemed to me to be worthy of all praise. There are,
indeed, abodes that kill the soul as well as the body, and this was one
of them in my estimation, yet I remembered as a seeming inconsistency
that, when, in her fourteenth year, it was proposed that Bertie should
come to me for the purpose of attending schools for the accomplishments,
she steadily refused to do so.
Her sense of duty might have been at the root of this firm and
persistent refusal to accept from my hand a gift richer far than "jewels
of the mine"--the power of varied occupation--but something had secretly
whispered to me that this was not all on which her apparent
self-abnegation was baaed, and I think that I was right in my
conjecture.
Have you seen a plant, scathed by frost, that has made a strong and
successful effort to live, and still in its struggling existence bears
the mark of the early blight on leaf and blossom?
Such was the impression made on my mind by Bertie La Vigne after three
years of separation, and yet she had grown into majestic stature and
into comparative beauty since we parted at Beauseincourt.
Tall, slender, straight as a young palm-tree, with exquisite
extremities, and a face of aristocratic if not Grecian proportions,
there still was wanting in her step, her eye, her smile, that wonderful
_abandon_ that had formed her chief charm in her earlier years.
She had been crystallized, so to speak, by some strange process of
suffering, into a cold and dull propriety, never infringed on save at
times when she found herself alone with me, and when the old
frolic-spirit would for a little time possess her. It was not dead, but
sleeping.
"And what, my dear Bertie," I said, one day, when Mr. Mortimer had
departed, and she came to throw herself down on the sofa in my chamber
and _rest_, "what has reconciled you to the old Parrot, as you used to
call our sublime Shakespeare?"
"Sublime! I shall think you affected, Miriam, if you apply that word
again to that old commonplace. If he were sublime, do you suppose all
the world would read him or go to see his plays? Do reserve that epithet
for Milton, Dante, Tasso, Schiller, and the like inaccessibilities. Yes,
I do revere 'Wallenstein' more than any thing Shakespeare ever
spouted"--in answer to my gently-shaking head--"I should break down over
_Thekla_, I should, indeed."
"Do you think his bed was soft under the war-horses?"--and she waved her
hand--"O God! what a tragedy; what a love!" and she covered her face
with her quivering palm.
"Bertie, you are still too excitable, I am sorry to see it"
"Philosopher, cure thyself."
"Yes, I know that was always a fault of mine."
"That is why you married the man in the iron mask, you know. I could
never have loved that person."
"Describe the man you think you could have loved, Bertie La Vigne."
"Could have loved? That time is past forever, child. 'Frozen, and dead
forever,' as Shelley says. _He_ was my affinity, I believe, only he died
before I was born. What a pity! I would rather be his widow than the
wife of any man living."
"_She_ would like to hear that, no doubt, Bertie."
"Well, she may hear it if she chooses when I go to England to read the
old Parrot in the right way, under their very noses, Kembles and all.
I'll let Mrs. Shelley know I'm there," and she laughed merrily.
"And what is your idea of the way to read Shakespeare, Bertie dear?" I
asked, playfully.
"As one having authority, a head and shoulders above him and all his
prating, just as you would talk to your every-day next neighbor, read
him without any fear of his old deer-stealing ghost? Why, Miriam, he
knew himself better than we knew him. He had no more idea of being a
genius than you have! He was a sort of artesian well of a man, and could
not help spouting platitudes, that was all. Besides, he had eyes to see
and ears to hear, and a very Yankee spirit of investigation. It is the
fashion to crack him up like the Bible, both encyclopaedias, that's all!
Every man can see himself in these books, and every man likes a
looking-glass, and that's the whole secret of their success."
"Bertie, you are incorrigible."
"No, I am not; only genuine. I do think there is a good deal in both of
the works in question, but their sublimity I dispute. They are homely,
coarse, commonplace, as birth and death."
There was something that almost froze my blood in the way she said those
last words, lying back upon the sofa with far-off-looking eyes and hands
clasped beneath her head.
"Miriam," she said, after a while, "life is a humbug. I have thought so
for some time."
"Poor child, poor child!"
"Ay, poorer than the poorest, Miriam Harz," and, laying aside my work, I
went to and knelt beside her, and kissed her brow.
"I have no soul to open! I am as empty as a chrysalis-case, that the
butterfly has gone out of to dwell amid sunshine and flowers. Yet I
believe I had one once"--in ineffably mournful accents--"but two men
killed it; and yet, neither intended the blow! O Miriam! I understand at
last what Coleridge meant by his "life in death." There is such a
thing--and that great necromancer found it out! I am the breathing
impersonation of that loathly thing, I believe. Listen"--and she sat up
with one raised finger and gave the poet's words with rare expression:
"'The nightmare--life in death was she,
That chilled men's blood with cold.'
"Doesn't that describe me as I am, Miriam?"
"You are, indeed, much changed, Bertie; perhaps it would be well could
you confide in me."
"No, it would not be well! I never could keep any thing wholly to
myself, neither can I tell it wholly, even to such as you--reticent!
merciful! But this believe, I have done nothing wrong, nothing to be
ashamed of, to wear sackcloth and ashes for, and I am preparing to put
my foot on it all. Ay, from the snake's head of first discovery to the
snake's tail of the last disappointment, ranging over half a dozen
years! A long serpent, truly!" laughing. "But I mean to be galvanized
and get back my life. I am determined to be famous, rich, beautiful!"
and she nodded to me with the old sweet sparkle in her eye, the glad
smile on her lip.
"You laugh at the last threat!--laugh on! 'He who laughs best, laughs
last!' says the old proverb. There is such a thing as training one's
features, isn't there, as well as one's setters? Miriam, I shall develop
slowly; I am still in my very downiest adolescence as to looks. You will
see me when I have filled out and ripened, and when I put on my grand
Marie Antoinette _tenu_, some day! Hair drawn back, _a la Pompadour_,
powdered with gold-dust; a touch of rouge, perhaps, on either cheek;
ruffles of rich lace at shoulders and elbows; pink brocade and emeralds,
picked out with diamonds! Mr. Mortimer's teachings in every graceful
movement! It will be all humbug, for I have no real beauty, not much
grace; but people will think me beautiful and graceful for all that,
while I wear my costumes. They are several--this is only one--all highly
becoming! I have a vision of a sea-green dress and moss-roses; of a
violet-satin robe, trimmed and twisted everywhere with flowers of yellow
jasmine; of pale-gold and tipped marabouts in my hair; also of an azure
silk with blond and pearls and a tiara on my forehead" (she laughed
archly). "You don't know my capabilities, my dear, for appearing to look
well--they are wonderful!"
"The very prospect transfigures you, Bertie. I am glad you are so
courageous."
"Were you courageous when you clung to your ropes on the sea-tossed
raft! No, Miriam! that was instinct--nothing more; and I, too, have very
strong intuitions of self-preservation. Heaven grant that they may be
successful! Let us pray."
And, with moving lips and down-drawn lids, from beneath which the large
tears stole one by one, like crystal globes, this suffering spirit
communed with its God, silently.
So best, I felt! Bertie was only a lip-deep scoffer. Her heart was open
to conviction yet, and, when the time came, I believed that the seed
sown in old days would germinate and bear good harvest. All was chaos
now!
Shall I keep on with Bertie, now that the theme has possession of me,
and go back to the others when she is finally dismissed? I think this
will be wisest, especially as my space is small, and mood concentrative
rather than erratic.
Let us pass over, then, five eventful years, during which the sorrows
and changes I have spoken of had taken place, and Wentworth had fixed
his home in the vicinity of San Francisco.
I had heard of Bertie in the interval as a successful _debutante_ as a
reader of Shakespeare, and had received her sparse and sparkling letters
confirming report, truly "angel visits, few and far between."
At last one came announcing her intention of visiting California
professionally, and sojourning beneath my roof while in San Francisco.
It was to be a stay of several weeks.
She was accompanied and sometimes assisted by Mr. and Mrs. Mortimer,
professional readers both--the last distinguished more for grace and
beauty, even though now on the wane of life, than she ever had been for
talent, but eminently fitted, both by education and character, for a
guide and companion.
An English maid, as perfect as an automaton in her training and
regularity, accompanied Bertie, to whom were confided all details of
dress, all keys and jewels, with entire confidence and safety. An
elaborate doll seemed the red-and-white and stupidly-staring Euphemia.
Yet was she adroit, obedient, and expert, just to move in the groove of
her requirements.
I have spoken only of her accessories; but now for Bertie herself.
"Is she not magnificent?" was my exclamation when alone with my husband
on the night of her arrival, after our guest, with her sparkling face
and conversation, her superb toilet and bearing, her graceful,
nymph-like walk, had retired to her chamber, attended by the mechanical
"Miss Euphemia."
The Mortimers, with their children and servants, remained at the
principal hotel.
"The very word for her," he replied; "only that and nothing more."
"Wardour!"
"Well, love!"
"How little enthusiasm you possess about the beautiful! Now, if there
were question of a new railroad-bridge, the vocabulary would have been
exhausted."
"What would you have me say, dear? Is not that word a very comprehensive
one? The lady above-stairs is indeed magnificent; but, Miriam, where is
Bertie?" and he laughed.
"Ah! I understand; you find her artificial."
"She is too fine an actress for that, Miriam; only transfigured."
"Yes, I see what you mean" (sadly). "Bertie _is_ wholly changed. Whom
does she resemble, Wardour? What queen, bethink you, whose likeness you
have seen? Not Mary Queen of Scots--not Elizabeth--"
"No, surely not; but she is, now that you draw my attention to it,
strikingly like Marie Antoinette."
"She said she would be, and she has succeeded!" and I mused on the
wonderful transition.
Four years more, and we heard of Bertie in England, as the
rarely-gifted and beautiful American reader, "Lavinia La Vigne." Out of
the _repertoire_ of her family names she had fished up this
alliteration, and "Bertie" was reserved for those behind the scenes.
It was declared also in the public sheets, what great and distinguished
men were in her train; how wits bowed to her wit, and authors to her
criticisms! But, when she wrote to me, she said nothing of all this,
only telling of her visit to Mrs. Shelley, who had received her kindly,
and to the tomb of Shakespeare, whose painted effigy she especially
derided. "It looks indeed like a man who would cut his wife off with an
old feather-bed and a teakettle," was one of her characteristic remarks,
I remember; but there was a little postscript that told the whole story
of her life, on a separate scrap of paper meant only for my eye I
clearly saw, and committed instantly to the flames after perusal:
"Ah, Miriam, this is all a magic lantern! The people are phantoms, the
realities are shadows, and I a wretched humbug, duller than all! Two men
have lived and breathed for me on the face of this earth--two only. One
was my much-offending and deeply-suffering father. The other--O, Miriam,
to think of him is crime; but in his life, and that alone, I live. I
send you Praed's last beautiful little song--'Tell him I love him yet.'
It will tell you every thing. An answer I have scribbled to it as if
written by a man. Keep both, and when I am dead, should you survive me,
dear, lay them if you can in my coffin, close, close to my heart!"
Three years more, and Bertie is in Rome, independent, at last, through
her own exertions, and able to gratify her tastes. I receive thence
statues, and pictures, and cameos, all exquisite of their kind, her
princely gifts, her legacies. Then comes a long silence. She knew what
faith was mine when she last abode beneath my roof and made herself a
little impertinently merry at my expense in consequence of this new
order of things.
Now comes a letter (a paper envelope accompanying it)--Bertie La Vigne
has entered the Catholic Church, through baptism and confirmation, so
briefly states the letter written in her own hand and of date some
months back, retained, no doubt, through forgetfullness, until reminded.
The paper, of recent issue, tells of the ceremony at St. Peter's, which
admitted to the novitiate several noble ladies, native and foreign, and
among the rest an _artist_ of merit, Miss Lavinia La Vigne, of Georgia,
United States of America.
On the margin of the paper were a few penciled words in her own
handwriting: "I have found the reality." This was all.
I shall never see her again unless I go to Rome, and then only through a
grating, or in the presence of others like herself, for she has taken
the black veil, and retired behind a shadow deep as that cast from the
cypress-shaded tomb. Yet, under existing circumstances, and in
consideration of her early experiences which no success nor later future
could obliterate, or render less unendurable, I believe she has chosen
the wiser part.
Peace be with thee, Bertie, whether in earth or in heaven!
EDITOR'S Note.--... Some years after the closing of Miriam Monfort's
Retrospect, the civil war broke out in the United Stales, and Pope Pius
IX was pleased to grant permission to several American nuns, Southern
ladies, whose vocation was religious, to visit their own States, and
lend what succor, spiritual and physical, they could to the wounded and
dying, on the battle-fields and in the Confederate camps. Among these
came the Sister Ursula, from the convent of the Cartusians, known once
as Lavinia, or Bertie La Vigne. She was particularly fearless and
efficient, and was killed by a cannon-ball at Shiloh while kneeling
beside a dying officer, ascertained to be her sister's husband, the
gallant George Gaston of the Seventh Georgia. By order of Colonel
Favraud, they were buried in one grave. He best knew wherefore this was
done.
Our home overlooks the calm bay of Sun Francisco, standing, as it does,
on an eminence, surrounded with stately forest-trees, and dark from a
distance with evergreens which trail their majestic branches over roods
of lawn.
These trees have ever been a passion with me. I love their aromatic
odors, reminding one of balm and frankincense, and the great Temple of
Solomon itself, built of fine cedar-wood. I admire their stately
symmetry, and the majesty of their unchanging presence, and stand well
pleased and invigorated in their shadow.
Our house is built of stone, and faced with white marble brought from
beyond the seas. Its architectural details are composite, and yet of
dream-like beauty and perfection.
There are statues and blooming plants in the great lower corridors and
porticos, and vast hall of entrance, oval and open to the roof, with its
marble gallery surrounding it and suspended midway, secured by its
exquisite and lace-like screen of iron balustrading. Pictures of the
great modern masters adorn the walls.
The skylight above floods the whole house with sunshine at the touching
of a cord, which controls the venetians that in summer-time shade the
halls below; and the parlors, and saloon, and library, and dining-room,
and the quiet, spacious chambers above-stairs, are all admirably
proportioned and finished, and furnished as well, for the comfort of
those that abide in them--hosts and guests.
* * * * *
In one of the most private and luxurious of these apartments abode, for
some years, a pale and shadowy being, refusing all intercourse with
society, and vowed to gloom and hypochondria. It was her strange and
mournful mania to look upon all human creatures with suspicion, nay,
with loathing.
The fairest linen, the whitest raiment, the most exquisite repast,
whether prepared by human hands, or furnished by divine Providence
itself, in the shape of tempting fruits, if touched by another, became
at once revolting and unpalatable. Thus, with servants to relieve her of
all cares, and Mrs. Austin as her devoted attendant, she preferred, by
the aid of her own small culinary contrivance, to prepare her fastidious
meals, to spread her own snowy couch, so often a bed of thorns to her,
to put on her own attire, regularly fumigated and purified by some
process she affected, as it tame from the laundry, and touched only with
gloved hands by herself, as were the books into which she occasionally
glanced for solace.
Most of her time was spent in gazing from her window, that overlooked
the bay, and dreaming of the return of one who had long since
heartlessly deserted her, leaving her dependent on those she had
injured, and from whom she bitterly and even derisively received
shelter, tender ministry, and all possible manifestations of compassion
and interest.
Her mind had been partially overthrown at the time of her husband's
desertion and her dead baby's birth--events that occurred almost
conjointly; and it was the wreck of Evelyn Erle we cherished until her
slow consumption, long delayed by the balmy air of California,
culminated mercifully to herself and all around her, and removed her
from this sphere of suffering.
Whither? Alas! the impotence of that question! Are there not beings who
seem, indeed, to lack the great essential for salvation--a soul to be
saved? How far are such responsible?
Claude Bainrothe is married again, and not to Ada Greene, who, outcast
and poor, came some years since as an adventuress to California, and
signalized herself later, in the _demi-monde_, as a leader of great
audacity, beauty, and reckless extravagance. The lady of his choice (or
heart?) was a fat baroness, about twenty years his senior, who lets
apartments, and maintains the externes of her rank in a saloon fifteen
feet square, furnished with red velveteen, and accessible by means of an
antechamber paved with tiles!
He has grown stout, drinks beer, and smokes a meerschaum, but is still
known on the principal promenade, and in the casino of the German town
in which he resides, as "the handsome American." He is said, however, to
have spells of melancholy.
The "Chevalier Bainrothan," and the "Lady Charlotte Fremont," his
step-daughter, for as such she passes, for some quaint or wicked reason
unrevealed to society, with their respectable and hideous house-keeper,
Madame Clayton, dwell under the same roof, and enjoy the privilege of
access to the _salon_, of the baroness, and a weekly game of _ecarte_ at
her _soirees_, usually profitable to the chevalier in a small way.
All this did Major Favraud, in his own merry mood, communicate to us on
the occasion of his memorable visit to San Francisco, when he remained
our delighted guest during one long delicious summer season. Of Gregory,
we never heard.
"I had hoped to hear of your marriage long before this," I said to him
one day. "Tell me why you have not wedded some fair lady before this
time. Now tell me frankly as you can."
"Simply because you did not wait for me."
"Nonsense! the truth. I want no _badinage_."
"Because, then--because I never could forget Celia--never love any one
else."
"She was one of Swedenborg's angels, Major Favraud--no real wife of
yours. She never was married"--and I shook my head--"only united to a
being of the earth with whom she had no real affinity. Choose yours
elsewhere."
"I believe you are half right," he said, sadly. "She never seemed to
belong to me by right--only a bird I had caught and caged, that loved me
well, yet was eager to escape."
"Such was the state of the case, I cannot doubt; a more out and out
flesh-and-blood organization would suit you better. Your life is not
half spent; the dreary time is to come. Go back to Bellevue, and get you
a kind companion, and let children climb your knees, and surround your
hearth. You would be so much happier."
"Suggest one, then. Come, help me to a wife."
"No, no, I can make no matches; but you know Madame de St. Aube is a
widow now. You were always congenial."
"Yes, but"--with a shrug of his shoulders, worthy of a Frenchman--"_que
voulez vous?_ That woman has five children already, and a plantation
mortgaged to Maginnis!"
"Maginnis again! The very name sends a chill through my bones! No, that
will never do. Some maiden lady, then--some sage person of thirty-four
or five."
"I do not fancy such. I'll tell you what! I believe I will go back and
court Bertie on some of her play-acting rounds, and make a decent woman
of that little vagabond. Because she was disappointed once, is that a
reason? Great Heavens! this tongue of mine! Cut it out, Mrs. Wentworth,
and cast it to the seals in the bay. I came very near--"
"Betraying what I have long suspected, Major Favraud. Who _was_ that
man?"
"Don't ask me, my dear woman; I must not say another word, in honor. It
was a most unfortunate affair--a sheer misunderstanding. He loved her
all the time; I knew this, but you know her manner! He did not
understand her flippant way; her keen, unsparing, and bitter wit; her
devoted, passionate, proud, and breaking heart; and so there was a
coolness, and they parted; and what happened afterward nearly killed
her! So she left her home."[6]
"I must not ask you, I feel, for you say you cannot tell me more in
honor, but I think I know. The man, of all the earth, I would have
chosen for her. Oh, hard is woman's fate!"
To the very last I have reserved what lay nearest my heart of hearts.
Three children have been born to us in California, and have made our
home a paradise. The two elder are sons, named severally for my father
and theirs, Reginald and Wardour.
The last is a daughter, a second Mabel, beautiful as the first, and
strangely resembling her, though of a stronger frame and more vital
nature. She is the sunshine of the house, the idol of her father and
brothers, who _all_ are mine, as well as the fair child of seven
summers herself.
Mrs. Austin presides, in imagination, over our nursery, but, in reality,
is only its most honored occasional visitor, her chamber being distinct,
and my own rule being absolute therein, with the aid of a docile
adjunct.
Ernest Wentworth, our adopted son--so-called for want of any other
name--is the standard of perfection in mind and morals, for the
imitation of the rest of the band of children.
He has gained the usual stature of young men of his age, with a slight
defect of curvature of the shoulders that does but confirm his scholarly
appearance.
His face, with its magnificent brow, piercing dark eyes, pale
complexion, and clustering hair, is striking, if not handsome.
He has graduated as a student of law, and, should his health permit,
will, I cannot doubt, distinguish himself as a forensic orator.
George Gaston and Madge have promised a visit to the Vernons; but I
cannot help hoping, rather without than _for_ any good reason, that they
will not come! I love them both, yet I feel they are mismated, even if
happy.
My husband is noted among his peers for his liberal and noble-minded use
of a princely income, and his great public spirit. He unites
agricultural pursuits with his profession, and has placed, among other
managers, my old ally, Christian Garth and his family, on the ranch he
holds nearest to San Francisco.
Thence, at due seasons, seated on a wain loaded with the fruits of their
labor, the worthy pair come up to the city to trade, and never fail in
their tribute to our house.
The immigrant possessed of worth and industry, however poor; the
adventurous man, who seeks by the aid of his profession alone to
establish himself in California; the artist, the man of letters, all
meet a helping hand from Wardour Wentworth, who in his charities
observes but one principle of action, one hope of recompense, both to be
found in the teachings of philanthropy:
"As I do unto you, go you and do unto others." This is his maxim.
Our lives have been strangely happy and successful up to this hour, so
that sometimes my emotional nature, too often in extremes, trembles
beneath its burden of prosperity, and conjures up strange phantoms of
dark possibilities, that send me, tearful and depressed, to my husband's
arms, to find strength and courage in his rare and calm philosophy and
equipoise.
Never on his sweet serene brow have I seen a frown of discontent, or a
cloud of sourceless sorrow, such as too often come--the last especially
to mine--born of that melancholy which has its root far back in the
bosoms of my ancestors.
Such as his life is, he accepts it manfully; and in his shadow I find
protection and grow strong.
Reader, farewell!
THE END.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 6: This was previous to Bertie's visit.]
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Fallen Pride,... 1 75
The Christmas Guest,... 1 75
The Willow's Son,... 1 75
The Bride of Llewellyn,... 1 75
The Fortune Seeker,... 1 75
The Missing Bride; or, Miriam, the Avenger,... 1 75
The Fatal Marriage,... $1 75
The Deserted Wife,... 1 75
The Bridal Eve,... 1 75
The Lost Heiress,... 1 75
The Two Sisters,... 1 75
Lady of the Isle,... 1 75
Prince of Darkness,... 1 75
The Three Beauties,... 1 75
Vivia; or the Secret of Power,... 1 75
Love's Labor Won,... 1 75
The Gipsy's Prophecy,... 1 75
Haunted Homestead,... 1 75
Wife's Victory,... 1 75
Allworth Abbey,... 1 75
The Mother-in-Law,... 1 75
India; Pearl of Pearl River,... 1 75
Curse of Clifton,... 1 75
Discarded Daughter,... 1 75
The Mystery of Dark Hollow,... 1 75
Retribution,... 1 75
Above are each in cloth, or each one is in paper cover, at $1.30 each.
MRS. ANN S. STEPHENS' WORKS.
_Complete in twenty-two large duodecimo volumes bound in morocco cloth
gilt back, price $1.75 each; or $38.50 a set, each set is put up in a
neat box_.
Bertha's Engagement,... $1 75
Bellehood and Bondage,... 1 75
The Old Countess,... 1 75
Lord Hope's Choice,... 1 75
The Reigning Belle,... 1 75
A Noble Woman,... 1 75
Palaces and Prisons,... 1 75
Married in Haste,... 1 75
Wives and Widows,... 1 75
Ruby Gray's Strategy,... 1 75
Doubly False,... 1 75
The Soldiers' Orphans,... $1 75
Silent Struggles,... 1 75
The Rejected Wife,... 1 75
The Wife's Secret,... 1 75
Mary Derwent,... 1 75
Fashion and Famine,... 1 75
The Curse of Gold,... 1 75
Mabel's Mistake,... 1 75
The Old Homestead,... 1 75
The Heiress,... 1 75
The Gold Brick,... 1 75
Above are each in cloth, or each one is in paper cover, at $1.50 each.
MRS. C.A. WARFIELD'S WORKS.
_Complete in six large duodecimo volumes, bound in morocco cloth, gilt
back, price $1.75 each; or $10.50 a set, each set is put up in a neat
box_.
Monfort Hall,... $1 75
Miriam's Memoirs,... 1 75
Sea and Shore,... 1 75
The Household of Bouverie,... 1 75
Hester Howard's Temptation,... 1 75
A Double Wedding,... 1 75
Above Books will be sent, postage paid, on receipt of Retail Price, by
T.B. Peterson & Brothers. Philadelphia, Pa.
* * * * *
MRS. CAROLINE LEE HENTZ'S WORKS.
_Green and Gold Edition. Complete in twelve volumes, in green morocco
cloth, price $1.75 each; or $21.00 a set, each set is put up in a neat
box._
Ernest Linwood,... $1 75
The Planter's Northern Bride,... 1 75
Courtship and Marriage,... 1 75
Rena; or, the Snow Bird,... 1 75
Marcus Warland,... 1 75
Love after Marriage,... 1 75
Eoline; or Magnolia Vale,... 1 75
The Lost Daughter,... 1 75
The Banished Son,... 1 75
Helen and Arthur,... 1 75
Linda; or, the Young Pilot of the Belle Creole,... 1 75
Robert Graham; the Sequel to "Linda; or Pilot of Belle Creole,"... 1 75
Above are each in cloth, or each one is in paper cover, at $1.50 each.
BEST COOK BOOKS PUBLISHED.
_Every housekeeper should possess at least one of the following Cook
Books, as they would save the price of it in a week's cooking._
The Queen of the Kitchen. Containing 1007 Old Maryland
Family Receipts for Cooking, Cloth,... $1 75
Miss Leslie's New Cookery Book, Cloth,... 1 75
Mrs. Hale's New Cook Book, Cloth,... 1 75
Petersons' New Cook Book, Cloth,... 1 75
Widdifield's New Cook Book, Cloth,... 1 75
Mrs. Goodfellow's Cookery as it Should Be, Cloth,... 1 75
The National Cook Book. By a Practical Housewife, Cloth,... 1 75
The Young Wife's Cook Book, Cloth,... 1 75
Miss Leslie's New Receipts for Cooking, Cloth,... 1 75
Mrs. Hale's Receipts for the Million, Cloth,... 1 75
The Family Save-All. By author of "National Conk Book," Cloth,... 1 75
Francatelli's Modern Cook. With the most approved methods of
French, English, German, and Italian Cookery. With Sixty-two
Illustrations. One volume of 500 pages, bound in morocco cloth, $5.00
JAMES A. MAITLAND'S WORKS.
_Complete in seven large duodecimo volumes, bound in cloth, gilt back,
price $1.75 each; or $12.25 a set, each set is put up in a neat box_.
The Watchman,... $1 75
The Wanderer,... 1 75
The Lawyer's Story,... 1 75
Diary of an Old Doctor,... 1 75
Sartaroe,... 1 75
The Three Cousins,... 1 75
The Old Patroon; or the Great Van Brock Property,... 1 75
Above are each in cloth, or each one is in paper cover, at $1.50 each.
T. ADOLPHUS TROLLOPE'S WORKS.
_Complete in seven large duodecimo volumes, bound in cloth, gilt back,
price $1.75 each; or $12.25 a set, each set is put up in a neat box_.
The Sealed Packet,... $1 75
Garstang Grange,... 1 75
Dream Numbers,... 1 75
Beppo, the Conscript,... 1 75
Leonora Cassaloni,... 1 75
Gemma,... 1 75
Marietta,... 1 75
Above are each in cloth, or each one is in paper cover, at $1.50 each.
FREDRIKA BREMER'S WORKS.
_Complete in six large duodecimo volumes, bound in cloth, gilt back,
price $1.75 each; or $10.50 a set, each set is put up in a neat box_.
Father and Daughter,... $1 75
The Four Sisters,... 1 75
The Neighbors,... 1 75
The Home,... 1 75
Above are each in cloth, or each one it in paper cover, at $1.50 each.
Life in the Old World. In two volumes, cloth, price, 3.50
* * * * *
Above Books will be sent, postage paid, on receipt of Retail Price, by
T.B. Peterson & Brothers, Philadelphia, Pa.
BY AUTHOR OF "THE HOUSEHOLD OF BOUVERIE."
MRS. C.A. WARFIELD'S NEW WORKS.
IN 6 VOLUMES, AT $1.75 EACH; OR $10.50 A SET.
* * * * *
_T.B. PETERSON & BROTHERS, 306 Chestnut Street, Philadelphia, Pa., have
just published a complete and uniform edition of all the new and
celebrated works written by Mrs. Catharine A. Warfield, the well-known
and popular American writer. This edition is in duodecimo form, and is
printed on the finest of white paper, and is complete in six volumes,
and each volume is bound in the very best manner, in morocco cloth, with
a full gilt back, and is sold at the low price of $1.75 a volume, or
$10.50 for a full and complete set. Every Family, and every Library in
this Country, should have in it a set of this beautiful edition of the
complete works of this talented and gifted American Authoress, Mrs.
Catharine A. Warfield. The following is a list of_
MRS. C.A. WARFIELD'S NEW WORKS.
MONFORT HALL.
MIRIAM'S MEMOIRS.
SEA AND SHORE.
THE HOUSEHOLD OF BOUVERIE.
A DOUBLE WEDDING; or, HOW SHE WAS WON.
HESTER HOWARD'S TEMPTATION.
* * * * *
_Above Books are for sale by all Booksellers at $1.75, each, or $10.50
for a complete set of the six volumes, or copies of either one or more
of the above books, or a complete set of them, will be sent at once to
any one, to any place, postage pre-paid, or free of freight, on
remitting their price in a letter to the Publishers,_
T.B. PETERSON & BROTHERS,
306 Chestnut Street, Philadelphia, Pa.
CHEAPEST BOOK HOUSE IN THE WORLD
Is at the Publishing and Bookselling Establishment of
T.B. PETERSON & BROTHERS,
No. 306 Chestnut Street, Philadelphia, Pa.
* * * * *
T.B. PETERSON & BROTHERS, Philadelphia, are the American publishers of
the popular and fast-selling books written by MRS. EMMA D.E.N.
SOUTHWORTH, MRS. ANN S. STEPHENS, MRS. CAROLINE LEE HENTZ, MISS ELIZA A.
DUPUY, MRS. C.A. WARFIELD, MRS. HENRY WOOD, Q.K.P. DOESTICKS, EMERSON
BENNETT, T.S. ARTHUR, GEORGE LIPPARD, HANS BREITMANN (CHARLES G.
LELAND), JAMES A. MAITLAND, CHARLES DICKENS, SIR WALTER SCOTT, CHARLES
LEVER, WILKIE COLLINS, MRS. C.J. NEWBY, JUSTUS LIEBIG, W.H. MAXWELL,
ALEXANDER DUMAS, GEORGE W.M. REYNOLDS, SAMUEL WARREN, HENRY COCKTON,
FREDRIKA BREMER, T. ADOLPHUS TROLLOPE, MADAME GEORGE SAND, EUGENE SUE,
MISS PARDOE, FRANK FAIRLEGH, W.H. AINSWORTH, FRANK FORRESTER (HENRY W.
HERBERT), MISS ELLEN PICKERING, CAPTAIN MARRYATT, MRS. GRAY, G.P.R.
JAMES, HENRY MORFORD, GUSTAVE AIMARD, and hundreds of other authors; as
well as of DOW'S PATENT SERMONS, HUMOROUS AMERICAN BOOKS, and MISS
LESLIE'S, MISS WIDDIFIELD'S, THE YOUNG WIFE'S, MRS. GOODFELLOW'S, MRS.
HALE'S, PETERSONS', THE NATIONAL, FRANCATELLI'S, THE FAMILY SAVE-ALL,
QUEEN OF THE KITCHEN, and all the best and popular Cook Books published.
T.B. PETERSON & BROTHERS take pleasure in calling the attention of the
entire Reading Community, as well as of all their Customers, and every
Bookseller, News Agent, and Book Buyer, as well as of the entire Book
Trade everywhere, to the fact that they are now publishing a large
number of cloth and paper-covered Books, in very attractive style,
including a series of 25 cent, 50 cent, 75 cent, $1.00, $1.50, $1.75,
and $2.00 Books, in new style covers and bindings making them large
books for the money, and bringing them before the Reading Public by
liberal advertising. They are new books, and are cheap editions of the
most popular and most saleable books published, are written by the best
American and English authors and are presented in a very attractive
style, printed from legible type, on good paper, and are especially
adapted to suit all who love to read good books, as well as for all
General reading, and they will be found for sale by all Booksellers, and
at Hotel Stands, Railroad Stations and in the Cars. They are in fact the
most popular series of works of fiction ever published, retailing at 25
cents, 50 cents, 75 cents, $1.00, $1.50, $1.75, and $2.00 each, as they
comprise the writings of the best and most popular authors in the world,
all of which will be sold by us to the trade at very low prices, and
also at retail to everybody. Send for a Catalogue of these books at
once.
New books are issued by us every week, comprising the best and most
entertaining works published, suitable for the Parlor, Library,
Sitting-Room, Railroad or Steamboat reading, and are written by the most
popular and best writers in the world.
Enclose a draft for five, ten, twenty, fifty, or one hundred dollars, or
more, to us in a letter, and write for what books you wish, and on
receipt of the money, or a satisfactory reference, the books will be
packed and sent to you at once, in any way you may direct, with
circulars and show-bills of the books to post up.
We want every Bookseller, and every News Agent, everywhere, to sell our
books, and to keep an assortment of them on hand, and to send to us at
once for a copy of our New Illustrated Descriptive Catalogue, which look
over carefully, marking what books you may want, as it contains a list
of all books published by us, all or any of which will be sold by us to
everybody in the Book Trade, to Booksellers, or to News Agents, at very
low rates. There are no books published you can sell as many of, or make
as much money on, as Petersons'. Send us on a trial order. All orders,
large or small, will be sent the day the order is received, and small
orders will receive the same promptness and care as large orders.
All Books named in Petersons' Catalogue will be found for sale by all
Booksellers, or copies of any one book, or more, or all of them, will be
sent to any one, at once, to any place, per mail, post-paid, or free of
freight, on remitting the retail price of the books wanted to T.B.
PETERSON & BROTHERS, Philadelphia.
WANTED--A Bookseller, News Agent, or Canvasser, in every city, town or
village on this Continent, to engage in the sale of Petersons' New and
Popular Fast Selling Books, on which large sales, and large profits can
be made.
Booksellers, Librarians, News Agents, Canvassers, Pedlers, and all other
persons, who may want any of Petersons' Popular and Fast Selling Books,
will please address their orders and letters, at once, to meet with
immediate attention, to
T.B. PETERSON & BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS,
306 CHESTNUT STREET, PHILADELPHIA, PA.
End of Project Gutenberg's Sea and Shore, by Mrs. Catharine A. Warfield