COPYRIGHT, 1881,
DANIEL HOLMES.
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
CONTENTS.
| CHAPTER | PAGE | |
|---|---|---|
| I. | The Examining Committee | [7] |
| II. | Madeline Clyde | [23] |
| III. | The Examination | [35] |
| IV. | Grandpa Markham | [53] |
| V. | The Result | [65] |
| VI. | Convalescence | [86] |
| VII. | The Drive | [106] |
| VIII. | Shadowings of What was to Be | [116] |
| IX. | The Decision | [127] |
| X. | At Aikenside | [131] |
| XI. | Guy at Home | [146] |
| XII. | Lucy’s Letter | [173] |
| XIII. | Gossip | [186] |
| XIV. | Maddy and Lucy | [203] |
| XV. | The Holidays | [225] |
| XVI. | The Doctor and Maddy | [256] |
| XVII. | Womanhood | [267] |
| XVIII. | The Burden | [282] |
| XIX. | Life at the Cottage | [302] |
| XX. | The Burden grows Heavier | [322] |
| XXI. | The Interval before the Marriage | [337] |
| XXII. | Before the Bridal | [342] |
| XXIII. | Lucy | [364] |
| XXIV. | Finale | [369] |
MADELINE.
CHAPTER I.
THE EXAMINING COMMITTEE.
Twenty-five years ago the people of Devonshire, a little town among the New England hills, had the reputation of being rather quarrelsome. Sometimes about meek, gentle Mrs. Tiverton, the minister’s wife, whose manner of housekeeping, or style of dress, did not exactly suit them; sometimes about the minister himself, who vainly imagined that if he preached three sermons a week, attended the Wednesday evening prayer-meeting, the Thursday evening sewing society, visited all the sick, and gave to every beggar that called at his door, besides superintending the Sunday-school, he was earning his salary of six hundred per year.
Sometimes, and that not rarely, the quarrel crept into the choir, and then for two or three Sundays it was all in vain that Mr. Tiverton read the psalm and hymn, and cast troubled glances toward the vacant seats of his refractory singers. There was no one to respond, except poor Mr. Hodges, who usually selected something in a minor key, and pitched it so high that few could follow him; while Mrs. Captain Simpson—whose daughter was the organist—rolled her eyes at her next neighbor, or fanned herself furiously in token of her disgust.