CHAPTER IVTHE ANGEL OF THE AGONY[image]he morning of the following day broke hazy and threatening. But as the hours wore on, the sky, which had been overcast, brightened slowly and in that instant's change the earth became covered with a radiance of sunshine and the heavens seemed filled with ineffable peace.It was late in the day, when Otto woke from his lethargy. Hour after hour he had raved without recovering consciousness. His breathing grew weaker. He was thought to be in his last agony. Little by little the vigour of his youth had reasserted itself, little by little he had opened his eyes. His sight had become dimmed from the effects of the poison, and his reason seemed to sway and to totter; the fevered flow of blood, the wild beating of his temples, caused everything around him to scintillate in a crimson haze and flit before his vision with fitful dazzling gleams. But his eyes seemed fixed steadily in a remote recess of the room.Those surrounding his couch had believed him nearing dissolution, and when he opened his eyes, Otto looked upon the faces of those who had guided his steps ever since he set his foot upon Italian soil, Eckhardt, Count Tammus, and Sylvester, the silver-haired pontiff who had come from Rome. Their faces told him the worst. He attempted to raise himself in his cushions, but his strength failed him, and he fell heavily back. Anew his ideas became confused and his gaze resumed its former fixedness.His lips moved and Eckhardt, who bent over him, to listen, turned white with rage."Again her accursed name," he growled, turning to the monk by his side."Stephania—where is Stephania?" moaned the dying youth.A voice almost a shriek rent the silence."I am here,—Otto,—I am here!"A shadow passed before the eyes of the amazed visitors in the sick-chamber, a shadow which seemed to come out of the wall itself, and the wife of the Senator of Rome staggered towards Otto's couch, who made a feeble effort to stretch out his hands toward her. He could not raise them. They were like lead. She rushed to his side, ere Eckhardt could prevent, and with a sob fell down before the couch and grasped them tightly in her own.The petrified amazement, which had pictured itself in the features of those assembled, at the unexpected apparition, gave vent to a flurry of whispers and conjectures during which Eckhardt, with face drawn and white and haggard, had rushed through the outer chamber to the door."Guards!" he thundered, "Guards!"Two spearmen appeared in the doorway."Seize this woman and throw her over the ramparts!" the Margrave said with a voice whose calm formed a fearful contrast to the blazing fury in his eyes.The men-at-arms approached with hesitation, but Sylvester barred their progress with uplifted arm."Vengeance is the Lord's!" he turned to Eckhardt, whose eyes, aflame with wrath, seemed the only living thing in his stony face.A terrible laugh broke from the Margrave's lips."His mad pleadings saved her once! Now, all the angels in heaven and demons in hell combined shall not save her from her doom!" he replied to the Pontiff. "Seize her, my men! She has killed your king! Over the ramparts with her!"They dared deny obedience no longer. Approaching the couch they laid hands on the kneeling woman. But the sight of violence for a moment so incensed the prostrate form in the cushions, that he started up, as he had done in the vigour of his health.With eyes glowing with fever and wrath, Otto leaped from the bed, planting himself before the prostrate form of the woman."Back!" he cried. "The first who lays hand on her dies by my hand, a traitor! Down on your knees before the Empress of the Romans!"Terror and amazement accomplished Stephanie's salvation.Even Eckhardt was stunned. He knelt with the rest with averted face."Leave the room!" Otto turned to the men-at-arms, and with heads bowed down they strode from the sick chamber and resumed their watch outside. What did it all mean? The presence of the Senator's wife at their sovereign's bedside, Eckhardt's contradictory demeanour, Otto's strange words; mystified they shook their heads, glad the terrible task had been spared them.Otto's exertion was followed by a complete collapse, and he fell back in a swoon. After a time he seemed to rally. Without assistance he sat up straight and rigid, and turned towards the woman, whose wan face and sunken eyes made her fatal beauty all the more terrible."Tell me—shall I live till night?" he whispered.And as she hid her face from him with a sob, he continued:"Do not deceive me! I am not afraid!"His voice broke. Every one in the room knelt down weeping. Sylvester tried to answer, but in vain. Hiding his face in his hands, the pontiff sobbed aloud."Softly—softly—" Otto whispered to Stephania, then turning towards the sky he whispered:"How beautiful!"The morning clouds were growing rosy; the twilight had become warm and mellow. The first beam of the sun appeared over the rim of the horizon. The dying youth held his face with closed eyes towards the light. A faint shiver ran through his body and with a last effort he stretched out his arms, as if he would have rushed to meet the rising orb.Suddenly he was seized by a convulsion; the veins swelled on neck and temples."Water—water!" he gasped choking.Stephania knew the symptoms. Pale as death she staggered to her feet, filled a cup with clear spring water and held it to his lips.Otto, grasping her hand with the cup, drank thirstily from the ice-cold draught.Then his head fell back. A last murmur came from his half-open lips:"Stephania,—Stephania—"Then his life went out. With a moan of heart-rending anguish she closed his eyes. The face of the youth, kissed by the early rays of the December sun, took on a look as of one sleeping. His soul, freed from earthly love, had entered on its eternal repose.Johannes Crescentius was avenged.Eckhardt had watched the last moments of his king. In the awful presence of Death, he had restrained a new outburst of passion against the woman, who had so utterly made that dead youth her own. But he had sworn a terrible oath to himself, that she should pay the penalty, if that life went out,—it would be cancelling the last debt he owed on the accursed Roman soil.And no sooner had the light faded from Otto's eyes, no sooner had they been closed under the soft touch of Stephania's hand, than Eckhardt rushed anew to the door and the terrible voice of the Margrave thundered through the stillness of the death-chamber:"Guards! Throw this woman over the ramparts! She has killed your King!"Again the guards rushed into the chamber. The terrible denunciation had stirred their zeal. Stephania, kneeling by Otto's couch, never stirred, but as the men-at-arms, over-awed by the spectacle that met their gaze, paused for a moment, the sound of falling crystal, breaking on the floor, startled the silver-haired pontiff.He had seen enough.Stepping between Stephania and her would-be slayers he waved them back.Then he picked up a fragment of the empty flask."This phial," he spoke to Eckhardt, "is of the same shape and size as one discovered in a witch's grave, when they were digging the foundations for the monastery of St. Jerome!"And he strode towards the woman and laid his hands on her head."She will soon answer before a higher tribunal," said the monk of Aurillac."Father," she whispered, holding the hands of the corpse in her own, while her head rested on her arms,—"I cannot see,—stoop down,—and let me whisper—""I am here, daughter, close—quite close to you."He inclined his ear to her mouth and listened. But though her lips moved, no words would come.After a moment or two of intense stillness, she whispered, raising her head."It is bright again! They are calling me! We will go together to that far, distant land of peace. I am with you, Otto—hold me up, I cannot breathe—"Gently Sylvester lifted her head."Otto,—my own love—forgive—" she gasped. A convulsive shudder passed through her body and she fell lifeless over the dead body of her victim.Stephania's proud spirit had flown.Sylvester muttered the prayer for the departed, and staggered to his feet.Eckhardt pointed to her lifeless clay. In his livid face burnt relentless, unforgiving wrath."Throw that woman over the ramparts!" he turned to his men. "She shall not have Christian burial!"Anew Sylvester intervened."Back!" he commanded the guards. "Judge not,—that ye may not be judged. What has passed between those two—lies beyond the pale of human ken. He alone, who has called, has the right to judge them! She died absolved.—May God have mercy on her soul!"As weeping those present turned to leave the death-chamber, Eckhardt bent over the still, dead face of Otto."I will hold the death-watch," he turned to Sylvester. "Have the bier prepared! To-morrow at dawn we start. We return to our Saxon-land,—we go back across the Alps. In the crypts of Aix-la-Chapelle the grandson of the great Otto shall rest; he shall sleep by the side of the great emperor, whom he visited ere he came hither; Charlemagne's phantom has claimed him at last. Rome shall not have a lock of his hair!""As you say—so shall it be!" replied Sylvester, his gaze turning from Otto to the lifeless clay of Stephania.Softly he raised her dead body and laid it side by side with that of Theophano's son, joining their hands."Though they shall sleep apart in distant lands, their souls are one in the great beyond, that holds no mysteries for the departed."From the chapel of the cloister at the foot of the hill, stealing through the solemn stillness of the December morning, came the chant of the monks:"Quando corpus morietur,Fac ut animae doneturParadisi gloria."CHAPTER VRETURN[image]he Eve of the Millennium stood upon the threshold of Time.The veiled sun of midwinter was rising and his early rays filled the blue balconies of the East with curtains of gold. From the slopes of Paterno a strange procession was to be seen winding its way down into the plains below. It was the remnant of the German host, carrying the bier with the body of the third Otto towards its distant, final resting-place. Eckhardt and Haco jointly headed the mournful cortege, which after reaching the plain, entered the northern road. Behind them lay Civita Castellana, the walls of the ancient citadel towering high above the town, which lay in the centre of a net-work of deep ravines. To their right the Sabine hills extended in long, airy lines and the wooded heights of Pellachio and San Gennaro rose to the south-east. Before them Viterbo with her hundred towers lay dark and frowning inside her bristling walls; and to northward, surmounted by its mighty cathedral dome, on a conical hill, above the great lake of Bolsena, the gray town of Montefiascone rose out of the wintry haze.Continually harassed by the Romans the small band hewed their way through their pursuers who abandoned their onslaughts only when the Germans reached the Nera and beheld the Campanile of St. Juvenale rising above Narni.Slowly the imperial cortege passed through the ancient town and was soon lost in the purple mists, which enshrouded mountain and valley.Rome lay behind them, the source of their tears and sorrows.Onward, ever onward they rode towards the glittering crests of the Alps, the solemn twilight of the Hercynian forest, towards the distant banks of the Rhine and the crypts of Aix-la-Chapelle.THE END.* * * * * * * *SMILES, A ROSE OF THE CUMBERLANDSBy Eliot Harlow RobinsonAuthor of "Man Proposes"Cloth decorative, 12mo, illustrated, $1.50Smiles is a girl that is sure to make friends. Her real name is Rose, but the rough folk of the Cumberlands preferred their own way of addressing her, for her smile was so bright and winning that no other name suited her so well.Smiles was not a native of the Cumberlands, and her parentage is one of the interesting mysteries of the story. Young Dr. MacDonald saw more in her than the mere untamed, untaught child of the mountains and when, due to the death of her foster parents a guardian became necessary, he was selected. Smiles developed into a charming, serious-minded young woman, and the doctor's warm friend, Dr. Bently, falls in love with her.We do not want to detract from the pleasure of reading this story by telling you how this situation was met, either by Smiles or Dr. MacDonald—but there is a surprise or two for the reader.Press opinions on "Man Proposes":"Readers will find not only an unusually interesting story, but one of the most complicated romances ever dreamed of. Among other things the story gives a splendid and realistic picture of high social life in Newport, where many of the incidents of the plot are staged in the major part of the book."—The Bookman."It is well written; the characters are real people and the whole book has 'go.'"—Louisville Post.TWEEDIE, THE STORY OF A TRUE HEARTBy Isla May MullinsAuthor of "The Blossom Shop Stories," etc.Cloth decorative, 12mo, illustrated, $1.65In this story Mrs. Mullins has given us another delightful story of the South.The Carlton family—lovable old Professor Carlton, and his rather wilful daughter Ruth—twenty-three years old and with decided ideas as to her future—decide to move to the country in order to have more time to devote to writing.Many changes come to them while in the country, the greatest of which is Tweedie—a simple, unpretentious little body who is an optimist through and through—but does not know it. In a subtle, amusing way Tweedie makes her influence felt. At first some people would consider her a pest, but would finally agree with the Carlton family that she was "Unselfishness Incarnate." It is the type of story that will entertain and amuse both old and young.The press has commented on Mrs. Mullins' previous books as follows:"Frankly and wholly romance is this book, and lovable—as is a fairy tale properly told. And the book's author has a style that's all her own, that strikes one as praiseworthily original throughout."—Chicago Inter-Ocean."A rare and gracious picture of the unfolding of life for the young girl, told with a delicate sympathy and understanding that must touch alike the hearts of young and old."—Louisville (Ky.) Times.ONLY HENRIETTABy Lela Horn RichardsAuthor of "Blue Bonnet—Debutante," etc.Cloth decorative, 12mo, illustrated, $1.50Henrietta was the victim of circumstances. It was not her fault that her father, cut off from his expected inheritance because of his marriage, was unexpectedly thrown upon his own resources, nor that he proved to be a weakling who left his wife and daughter to shift for themselves, nor that her mother took refuge in Colorado far away from their New England friends and acquaintances. Youth, however, will overcome much, and when Richard Bently appears in the mountains, life takes on a new interest for Henrietta.When her mother dies Henrietta goes to live with Mrs. Lovell, who knew her father years ago in the little Vermont town. Mrs. Lovell determines to do what she can to secure for Henrietta the place in society and the inheritance that is rightfully hers. The means employed and the success attained—but that's the story."Only Henrietta" is written in the happy vein that has secured for Mrs. Richards a host of friends and admirers, and is sure to duplicate the earlier successes achieved for the young people by the Blue Bonnet Series."The chief charm of the book is that it contains so much of human nature and it is a book that will gladden the hearts of many girl readers because of its charming air of comradeship and reality."—The Churchman, Detroit, Mich.THE AMBASSADOR'S TRUNKBy George BartonAuthor of "The World's Greatest Military Spies andSecret Service Agents," "The Mystery of theRed Flame," "The Strange Adventuresof Bromley Barnes," etc.Cloth decorative, 12mo, illustrated, $1.65Bromley Barnes, retired chief of the Secret Service, an important State document, a green wallet, the Ambassador's trunk—these are the ingredients, which, properly mixed, and served in attractive format and binding, produce a draught that will keep you awake long past your regular bedtime.Mr. Barton is master of the mystery story, and in this absorbing narrative the author has surpassed his best previous successes."It would be difficult to find a collection of more interesting tales of mystery so well told. The author is crisp, incisive and inspiring. The book is the best of its kind in recent years and adds to the author's already high reputation."—New York Tribune."The story is full of life and movement, and presents a variety of interesting characters. It is well proportioned and subtly strong in its literary aspects and quality. This volume adds great weight to the claim that Mr. Barton is among America's greatest novelists of the romantic school; and in many ways he is regarded as one of the most versatile and interesting writers."—Boston Post.THE ROMANCESOFNATHAN GALLIZIEREach, one volume, 12mo, cloth, illustrated, $2.00Castel del MonteThe Sorceress of RomeThe Court of LuciferThe Hill of VenusThe Crimson GondolaUnder the Witches' MoonTHE PAGE COMPANY53 Beacon Street, Boston, Mass.*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOKTHE SORCERESS OF ROME***
CHAPTER IV
THE ANGEL OF THE AGONY
[image]he morning of the following day broke hazy and threatening. But as the hours wore on, the sky, which had been overcast, brightened slowly and in that instant's change the earth became covered with a radiance of sunshine and the heavens seemed filled with ineffable peace.
[image]
[image]
It was late in the day, when Otto woke from his lethargy. Hour after hour he had raved without recovering consciousness. His breathing grew weaker. He was thought to be in his last agony. Little by little the vigour of his youth had reasserted itself, little by little he had opened his eyes. His sight had become dimmed from the effects of the poison, and his reason seemed to sway and to totter; the fevered flow of blood, the wild beating of his temples, caused everything around him to scintillate in a crimson haze and flit before his vision with fitful dazzling gleams. But his eyes seemed fixed steadily in a remote recess of the room.
Those surrounding his couch had believed him nearing dissolution, and when he opened his eyes, Otto looked upon the faces of those who had guided his steps ever since he set his foot upon Italian soil, Eckhardt, Count Tammus, and Sylvester, the silver-haired pontiff who had come from Rome. Their faces told him the worst. He attempted to raise himself in his cushions, but his strength failed him, and he fell heavily back. Anew his ideas became confused and his gaze resumed its former fixedness.
His lips moved and Eckhardt, who bent over him, to listen, turned white with rage.
"Again her accursed name," he growled, turning to the monk by his side.
"Stephania—where is Stephania?" moaned the dying youth.
A voice almost a shriek rent the silence.
"I am here,—Otto,—I am here!"
A shadow passed before the eyes of the amazed visitors in the sick-chamber, a shadow which seemed to come out of the wall itself, and the wife of the Senator of Rome staggered towards Otto's couch, who made a feeble effort to stretch out his hands toward her. He could not raise them. They were like lead. She rushed to his side, ere Eckhardt could prevent, and with a sob fell down before the couch and grasped them tightly in her own.
The petrified amazement, which had pictured itself in the features of those assembled, at the unexpected apparition, gave vent to a flurry of whispers and conjectures during which Eckhardt, with face drawn and white and haggard, had rushed through the outer chamber to the door.
"Guards!" he thundered, "Guards!"
Two spearmen appeared in the doorway.
"Seize this woman and throw her over the ramparts!" the Margrave said with a voice whose calm formed a fearful contrast to the blazing fury in his eyes.
The men-at-arms approached with hesitation, but Sylvester barred their progress with uplifted arm.
"Vengeance is the Lord's!" he turned to Eckhardt, whose eyes, aflame with wrath, seemed the only living thing in his stony face.
A terrible laugh broke from the Margrave's lips.
"His mad pleadings saved her once! Now, all the angels in heaven and demons in hell combined shall not save her from her doom!" he replied to the Pontiff. "Seize her, my men! She has killed your king! Over the ramparts with her!"
They dared deny obedience no longer. Approaching the couch they laid hands on the kneeling woman. But the sight of violence for a moment so incensed the prostrate form in the cushions, that he started up, as he had done in the vigour of his health.
With eyes glowing with fever and wrath, Otto leaped from the bed, planting himself before the prostrate form of the woman.
"Back!" he cried. "The first who lays hand on her dies by my hand, a traitor! Down on your knees before the Empress of the Romans!"
Terror and amazement accomplished Stephanie's salvation.
Even Eckhardt was stunned. He knelt with the rest with averted face.
"Leave the room!" Otto turned to the men-at-arms, and with heads bowed down they strode from the sick chamber and resumed their watch outside. What did it all mean? The presence of the Senator's wife at their sovereign's bedside, Eckhardt's contradictory demeanour, Otto's strange words; mystified they shook their heads, glad the terrible task had been spared them.
Otto's exertion was followed by a complete collapse, and he fell back in a swoon. After a time he seemed to rally. Without assistance he sat up straight and rigid, and turned towards the woman, whose wan face and sunken eyes made her fatal beauty all the more terrible.
"Tell me—shall I live till night?" he whispered.
And as she hid her face from him with a sob, he continued:
"Do not deceive me! I am not afraid!"
His voice broke. Every one in the room knelt down weeping. Sylvester tried to answer, but in vain. Hiding his face in his hands, the pontiff sobbed aloud.
"Softly—softly—" Otto whispered to Stephania, then turning towards the sky he whispered:
"How beautiful!"
The morning clouds were growing rosy; the twilight had become warm and mellow. The first beam of the sun appeared over the rim of the horizon. The dying youth held his face with closed eyes towards the light. A faint shiver ran through his body and with a last effort he stretched out his arms, as if he would have rushed to meet the rising orb.
Suddenly he was seized by a convulsion; the veins swelled on neck and temples.
"Water—water!" he gasped choking.
Stephania knew the symptoms. Pale as death she staggered to her feet, filled a cup with clear spring water and held it to his lips.
Otto, grasping her hand with the cup, drank thirstily from the ice-cold draught.
Then his head fell back. A last murmur came from his half-open lips:
"Stephania,—Stephania—"
Then his life went out. With a moan of heart-rending anguish she closed his eyes. The face of the youth, kissed by the early rays of the December sun, took on a look as of one sleeping. His soul, freed from earthly love, had entered on its eternal repose.
Johannes Crescentius was avenged.
Eckhardt had watched the last moments of his king. In the awful presence of Death, he had restrained a new outburst of passion against the woman, who had so utterly made that dead youth her own. But he had sworn a terrible oath to himself, that she should pay the penalty, if that life went out,—it would be cancelling the last debt he owed on the accursed Roman soil.
And no sooner had the light faded from Otto's eyes, no sooner had they been closed under the soft touch of Stephania's hand, than Eckhardt rushed anew to the door and the terrible voice of the Margrave thundered through the stillness of the death-chamber:
"Guards! Throw this woman over the ramparts! She has killed your King!"
Again the guards rushed into the chamber. The terrible denunciation had stirred their zeal. Stephania, kneeling by Otto's couch, never stirred, but as the men-at-arms, over-awed by the spectacle that met their gaze, paused for a moment, the sound of falling crystal, breaking on the floor, startled the silver-haired pontiff.
He had seen enough.
Stepping between Stephania and her would-be slayers he waved them back.
Then he picked up a fragment of the empty flask.
"This phial," he spoke to Eckhardt, "is of the same shape and size as one discovered in a witch's grave, when they were digging the foundations for the monastery of St. Jerome!"
And he strode towards the woman and laid his hands on her head.
"She will soon answer before a higher tribunal," said the monk of Aurillac.
"Father," she whispered, holding the hands of the corpse in her own, while her head rested on her arms,—"I cannot see,—stoop down,—and let me whisper—"
"I am here, daughter, close—quite close to you."
He inclined his ear to her mouth and listened. But though her lips moved, no words would come.
After a moment or two of intense stillness, she whispered, raising her head.
"It is bright again! They are calling me! We will go together to that far, distant land of peace. I am with you, Otto—hold me up, I cannot breathe—"
Gently Sylvester lifted her head.
"Otto,—my own love—forgive—" she gasped. A convulsive shudder passed through her body and she fell lifeless over the dead body of her victim.
Stephania's proud spirit had flown.
Sylvester muttered the prayer for the departed, and staggered to his feet.
Eckhardt pointed to her lifeless clay. In his livid face burnt relentless, unforgiving wrath.
"Throw that woman over the ramparts!" he turned to his men. "She shall not have Christian burial!"
Anew Sylvester intervened.
"Back!" he commanded the guards. "Judge not,—that ye may not be judged. What has passed between those two—lies beyond the pale of human ken. He alone, who has called, has the right to judge them! She died absolved.—May God have mercy on her soul!"
As weeping those present turned to leave the death-chamber, Eckhardt bent over the still, dead face of Otto.
"I will hold the death-watch," he turned to Sylvester. "Have the bier prepared! To-morrow at dawn we start. We return to our Saxon-land,—we go back across the Alps. In the crypts of Aix-la-Chapelle the grandson of the great Otto shall rest; he shall sleep by the side of the great emperor, whom he visited ere he came hither; Charlemagne's phantom has claimed him at last. Rome shall not have a lock of his hair!"
"As you say—so shall it be!" replied Sylvester, his gaze turning from Otto to the lifeless clay of Stephania.
Softly he raised her dead body and laid it side by side with that of Theophano's son, joining their hands.
"Though they shall sleep apart in distant lands, their souls are one in the great beyond, that holds no mysteries for the departed."
From the chapel of the cloister at the foot of the hill, stealing through the solemn stillness of the December morning, came the chant of the monks:
"Quando corpus morietur,Fac ut animae doneturParadisi gloria."
"Quando corpus morietur,Fac ut animae doneturParadisi gloria."
"Quando corpus morietur,
Fac ut animae donetur
Paradisi gloria."
Paradisi gloria."
CHAPTER V
RETURN
[image]he Eve of the Millennium stood upon the threshold of Time.
[image]
[image]
The veiled sun of midwinter was rising and his early rays filled the blue balconies of the East with curtains of gold. From the slopes of Paterno a strange procession was to be seen winding its way down into the plains below. It was the remnant of the German host, carrying the bier with the body of the third Otto towards its distant, final resting-place. Eckhardt and Haco jointly headed the mournful cortege, which after reaching the plain, entered the northern road. Behind them lay Civita Castellana, the walls of the ancient citadel towering high above the town, which lay in the centre of a net-work of deep ravines. To their right the Sabine hills extended in long, airy lines and the wooded heights of Pellachio and San Gennaro rose to the south-east. Before them Viterbo with her hundred towers lay dark and frowning inside her bristling walls; and to northward, surmounted by its mighty cathedral dome, on a conical hill, above the great lake of Bolsena, the gray town of Montefiascone rose out of the wintry haze.
Continually harassed by the Romans the small band hewed their way through their pursuers who abandoned their onslaughts only when the Germans reached the Nera and beheld the Campanile of St. Juvenale rising above Narni.
Slowly the imperial cortege passed through the ancient town and was soon lost in the purple mists, which enshrouded mountain and valley.
Rome lay behind them, the source of their tears and sorrows.
Onward, ever onward they rode towards the glittering crests of the Alps, the solemn twilight of the Hercynian forest, towards the distant banks of the Rhine and the crypts of Aix-la-Chapelle.
THE END.
* * * * * * * *
SMILES, A ROSE OF THE CUMBERLANDS
By Eliot Harlow Robinson
Author of "Man Proposes"
Cloth decorative, 12mo, illustrated, $1.50
Smiles is a girl that is sure to make friends. Her real name is Rose, but the rough folk of the Cumberlands preferred their own way of addressing her, for her smile was so bright and winning that no other name suited her so well.
Smiles was not a native of the Cumberlands, and her parentage is one of the interesting mysteries of the story. Young Dr. MacDonald saw more in her than the mere untamed, untaught child of the mountains and when, due to the death of her foster parents a guardian became necessary, he was selected. Smiles developed into a charming, serious-minded young woman, and the doctor's warm friend, Dr. Bently, falls in love with her.
We do not want to detract from the pleasure of reading this story by telling you how this situation was met, either by Smiles or Dr. MacDonald—but there is a surprise or two for the reader.
Press opinions on "Man Proposes":
"Readers will find not only an unusually interesting story, but one of the most complicated romances ever dreamed of. Among other things the story gives a splendid and realistic picture of high social life in Newport, where many of the incidents of the plot are staged in the major part of the book."—The Bookman.
"It is well written; the characters are real people and the whole book has 'go.'"—Louisville Post.
TWEEDIE, THE STORY OF A TRUE HEART
By Isla May Mullins
Author of "The Blossom Shop Stories," etc.
Cloth decorative, 12mo, illustrated, $1.65
In this story Mrs. Mullins has given us another delightful story of the South.
The Carlton family—lovable old Professor Carlton, and his rather wilful daughter Ruth—twenty-three years old and with decided ideas as to her future—decide to move to the country in order to have more time to devote to writing.
Many changes come to them while in the country, the greatest of which is Tweedie—a simple, unpretentious little body who is an optimist through and through—but does not know it. In a subtle, amusing way Tweedie makes her influence felt. At first some people would consider her a pest, but would finally agree with the Carlton family that she was "Unselfishness Incarnate." It is the type of story that will entertain and amuse both old and young.
The press has commented on Mrs. Mullins' previous books as follows:
"Frankly and wholly romance is this book, and lovable—as is a fairy tale properly told. And the book's author has a style that's all her own, that strikes one as praiseworthily original throughout."—Chicago Inter-Ocean.
"A rare and gracious picture of the unfolding of life for the young girl, told with a delicate sympathy and understanding that must touch alike the hearts of young and old."—Louisville (Ky.) Times.
ONLY HENRIETTA
By Lela Horn Richards
Author of "Blue Bonnet—Debutante," etc.
Cloth decorative, 12mo, illustrated, $1.50
Henrietta was the victim of circumstances. It was not her fault that her father, cut off from his expected inheritance because of his marriage, was unexpectedly thrown upon his own resources, nor that he proved to be a weakling who left his wife and daughter to shift for themselves, nor that her mother took refuge in Colorado far away from their New England friends and acquaintances. Youth, however, will overcome much, and when Richard Bently appears in the mountains, life takes on a new interest for Henrietta.
When her mother dies Henrietta goes to live with Mrs. Lovell, who knew her father years ago in the little Vermont town. Mrs. Lovell determines to do what she can to secure for Henrietta the place in society and the inheritance that is rightfully hers. The means employed and the success attained—but that's the story.
"Only Henrietta" is written in the happy vein that has secured for Mrs. Richards a host of friends and admirers, and is sure to duplicate the earlier successes achieved for the young people by the Blue Bonnet Series.
"The chief charm of the book is that it contains so much of human nature and it is a book that will gladden the hearts of many girl readers because of its charming air of comradeship and reality."—The Churchman, Detroit, Mich.
THE AMBASSADOR'S TRUNK
By George Barton
Author of "The World's Greatest Military Spies andSecret Service Agents," "The Mystery of theRed Flame," "The Strange Adventuresof Bromley Barnes," etc.
Cloth decorative, 12mo, illustrated, $1.65
Bromley Barnes, retired chief of the Secret Service, an important State document, a green wallet, the Ambassador's trunk—these are the ingredients, which, properly mixed, and served in attractive format and binding, produce a draught that will keep you awake long past your regular bedtime.
Mr. Barton is master of the mystery story, and in this absorbing narrative the author has surpassed his best previous successes.
"It would be difficult to find a collection of more interesting tales of mystery so well told. The author is crisp, incisive and inspiring. The book is the best of its kind in recent years and adds to the author's already high reputation."—New York Tribune.
"The story is full of life and movement, and presents a variety of interesting characters. It is well proportioned and subtly strong in its literary aspects and quality. This volume adds great weight to the claim that Mr. Barton is among America's greatest novelists of the romantic school; and in many ways he is regarded as one of the most versatile and interesting writers."—Boston Post.
THE ROMANCESOF
NATHAN GALLIZIER
Each, one volume, 12mo, cloth, illustrated, $2.00
Castel del MonteThe Sorceress of RomeThe Court of LuciferThe Hill of VenusThe Crimson GondolaUnder the Witches' Moon
THE PAGE COMPANY
53 Beacon Street, Boston, Mass.
*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOKTHE SORCERESS OF ROME***