By order of the company

BY ORDER OF THE COMPANY

By the same Author THE OLD DOMINION Second Edition
“ A book very much to be recommended. ”—Guardian. “ A stirring tale of love and adventure. ”—Tablet. “ The whole book is a masterpiece. ”—British Weekly. “ A delightful story. ”—Speaker. “ A notable book. ”—Literary World. “ Any reader who likes Stevenson will like ‘The Old Dominion. ’ ”—Outlook. “ I have not met with a more readable book for many a long day. ”—Whitehall Review. “ Miss Mary Johnston is to be congratulated. ”—Daily Telegraph. “ Altogether, ‘The Old Dominion’ is an excellent story. ”—Westminster Gazette. “ Every scene is realized, and every character lives. ”—Manchester Guardian. “ A romance of a merit quite remarkable. ”—Echo. “ The Baron congratulates Mary Johnston on her romantic story entitled ‘The Old Dominion.’ It is an exciting narrative of perilous adventures, and of a hate that was converted into love as strong as death. The characters are drawn with a strong hand, and the interest is sustained to the end. ”—Punch.

BY MARY JOHNSTON Author of The Old Dominion
WESTMINSTER ARCHIBALD CONSTABLE AND CO 2 WHITEHALL GARDENS 1900 1900. Copyright in the U.S.A. by Houghton Mifflin & Co


THE work of the day being over, I sat down upon my doorstep, pipe in hand, to rest awhile in the cool of the evening. Death is not more still than is this Virginian land in the hour when the sun has sunk away, and it is black beneath the trees, and the stars brighten slowly and softly, one by one. The birds that sing all day have hushed, and the horned owls, the monster frogs, and that strange and ominous fowl (if fowl it be, and not, as some assert, a spirit damned) which we English call the whippoorwill, are yet silent. Later the wolf will howl and the panther scream, but now there is no sound. The winds are laid, and the restless leaves droop and are quiet. The low lap of the water among the reeds is like the breathing of one who sleeps in his watch beside the dead.