Transcriber’s Notes:

This story was originally serialized in the Fireside Companion story paper from July 24, 1897 to September 25, 1897.

The original Hart Series edition of this book included a promotional preview of Nameless Bess; or, The Triumph of Innocence (chapters I-III) at the end. This extra material, plus a rear cover advertisement for issues 1-103 of the series, have been excluded from this electronic edition.

Obvious typographical errors have been silently corrected.

Some inconsistent hyphenation (e.g. “tomorrow” vs. “to-morrow”) has been retained from the original.

Unusual capitalization of some chapter titles in the table of contents has been retained from the original.