CHAPTER XVII

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The day will be so happy; for I’ve seen you at the dawn.

The room was quickly cleared, the King’s courtiers jostling one another in their efforts to carry out the royal bidding.

Charles turned with a merry laugh and seized Nell in his arms almost fiercely.

“A subterfuge!” he cried eagerly. “Nell, quick; one kiss!”

“Nay; you question my constancy to-night,” said Nell, sadly, as she looked into his eyes, with the look of perfect love. “You do not trust me.”

“I do, sweet Nell,” protested the King, earnestly.

“You bring me Portsmouth’s lips,” said Nell, with sad reproof.

“I left her dance for you,” replied the King, drawing her closer to him.

“At near sunrise, Sire,” sighed Nell, reprovingly, as she drew back the curtain and revealed the first gray streaks of the breaking light of day.

“Nay, do not tantalize me, Nell,” besought the King, throwing himself upon the couch. “I am sad to-night.”

The woman’s forgiving heart was touched with sympathy. Her eyes sought his sadly beautiful face. She ran to him, fell upon her knees and kissed his hand tenderly.

“Tantalize my King!” she cried. “The day will be so happy; for I’ve seen you at the dawn.” There was all the emotional fervour and pathetic tenderness which the great composer has compressed into the love-music of “Tristan and Isolde” in her voice.

“My crown is heavy, Nell,” he continued. “Heaven gives us crowns, but not the eye to see the ending of our deeds.”

“God sees them,” said Nell. “Ah, Sire, I thank the Maker of the world for giving a crown to one whom I respect and love.”

“And I curse it,” cried the King, with earnest eyes; “for ’tis the only barrier to our united love. It is the sparkling spider in the centre of a great web of intrigue and infamy.”

“You make me bold to speak. Cut the web, Sire, which binds thy crown to France. There is the only danger.”

“Thou art wrong, Nelly, wrong!” He spoke in deep, firm accents. “I have decided otherwise.”

He rose abruptly, his brow clouded with thought. She took his hand tenderly.

“Then, change your mind, Sire,” she pleaded; “for I can prove–”

“What, girl?” he asked eagerly, his curiosity awakened by her manner.

Nell did not respond. To continue would reveal Adair, and she could not think of that.

“What, I say?” again asked Charles, impatiently.

“To-morrow, Sire,” laughed Nell, evasively.

“Aye, to-morrow and to-morrow!” petulantly repeated the King.

He was about to demand a direct reply but was stayed by the sound of a struggle without.

It befell in the nick of time for Nell, as all things, indeed, in life seemed to befall in the nick of time for her. The impious huswives shook their heads and attributed it to the evil influence; the pious huswives asserted it was providential; Nell herself laughingly declared it was her lucky star.

“Ho, without there!” Charles cried, impatiently–almost angrily–at the interruption. “Whence comes this noisy riot?”

James, Rochester and the others unceremoniously re-entered.

“Pardon, Sire,” explained the Duke of York; “the guard caught but now an armed ruffian prowling by the house. They report they stayed him on suspicion of his looks and insolence.”

“Adair! Adair! My life upon’t!” laughed the King, ever ready for sport. “Set him before us.”

An officer of the guard departed quickly to bring in the offender. The courtiers took up the King’s cry most readily; and there was a general cackle of “Adair!” “Adair!” “A trial!” “Sire!” “Bring in the coward!”

Nell stood in the midst of the scene, the picture of demure innocence.

“They’ve caught Adair!” she whispered to Moll, mischievously.

“Aye, gallants,” cried the Merry Monarch, approvingly, “we’ll form a Court of Inquiry. This table shall be our bench, on which we’ll hem and haw and puff and look judicial. Odsfish, we will teach Radamanthus and Judge Jeffreys ways of terrorizing.”

He sprang upon the table, which creaked somewhat beneath the royal burden, and assumed the austere, frowning brow of worldly justice.

Oyer, oyer, all ye who have grievances–” cried the garrulous Rochester in the husky tones of the crier, who most generally assumes that he is the whole court and oftentimes should be.

“Mistress Nell,” commanded the royal judge, summoning Nell to the bar, “thou shalt be counsel for the prisoner; Adair’s life hangs upon thy skill to outwit the law.”

“Or bribe the judge, Sire?” suggested Nell, demurely.

“Not with thy traitor lips,” retorted Charles, with the injured dignity of a petty justice about to commit a flash of true wit for contempt of court.

“Traitor lips?” cried Nell, sadly. “By my troth, I never kissed Adair. I confess, I tried, your Majesty; but I could not.”

“Have a care,” replied the King, in a tone which indicated that the fires of suspicion still smouldered in his breast; “I am growing jealous.”

Nell fell upon one knee and stretched forth her arms suppliantly.

“Adair is in such a tight place, Sire, he can scarcely breathe,” she pleaded, with the zeal of a barrister hard-working for his first fee in her voice, “much less speak for himself. Mercy!”

“We will have justice; not mercy,” replied the court, with a sly wink at Rochester. “Guilty or not guilty, wench?”

“Not guilty, Sire! Did you ever see the man who was?”

The King laughed despite himself, followed by his ever-aping courtiers.

“I’ll plead for the Crown,” asserted the grim James, with great vehemence, “to rid the realm of this dancing-Jack.”

“Thou hast cause, brother,” laughed the King. “Rochester, thou shalt sit by us here.”

Rochester sprang, with a contented chuckle, into a chair on the opposite side of the table to that upon which his Majesty was holding his mock-court and seated himself upon its high back, so poised as not to fall. From this lofty bench, with a queer gurgle, to say nothing of a swelling of the chest, and with an approving glance from his Majesty, he added his mite to the all-inspiring dignity of the revellers’ court.

“Judge Rochester!” continued the King, slapping him with his glove, across the table. “Judge–of good ale. We’ll confer with the cups, imbibe the statutes and drink in the law. Set the rascal before us.”

In obedience to the command, a man well muffled with a cloak was forced into the room, a guard at either arm.

Behind them, taking advantage of the open door to appease their curiosity, crowded many hangers-on of courtdom, among whom was Strings, who had met the revellers some distance from the house and had returned with them.

“Hold off your hands, knaves,” commanded the prisoner, who was none other than Hart, the player, indignant at the detention.

“Silence, rogue!” commanded the King. “Thy name?”

“Sire!” cried Hart, throwing off his mantle and glancing for the first time at the judge’s face. He sank immediately upon one knee, bowing respectfully.

“Jack Hart!” cried one and all, craning their necks in surprise and expectation.

“’Slife, a spy upon our merry-making!” exclaimed the displeased monarch. “What means this prowling, sir?”“Pardon, pardon, my reply, your Majesty,” humbly importuned the player. “Blinded by passion, I might say that I should regret.”

“Your strange behaviour and stranger looks have meaning, sir,” cried the King, impatiently. “Out with it! These are too dangerous times to withhold your thoughts from your King.”

“No need for commands, Sire,” entreated Hart. “The words are trembling on my lips and will out themselves in spite of me. At Portsmouth’s ball, an hour past, I o’erheard that fop Adair boast to-night a midnight rendezvous here with Nell.”

Nell placed her hands upon her heart.

“This–my old friend,” she reflected sadly.

“Our jest turned earnest,” cried Charles. “Well? Well?” he questioned, in peremptory tones.

“I could not believe my ears, Sire,” the prisoner continued, faltering. “I watched to refute the lie–”

“Yes–yes–” exhorted the King, in expectation.“I cannot go on.”

“Knave, I command!”

“I saw Adair enter this abode at midnight.” Hart’s head fell, full of shame, upon his breast.

“’Sblood,” muttered the King, scarce mindful that his words might be audible to those about him, “my heart stands still as if’t were knifed. My pretty golden-head, my bonnie Nell!” He turned sharply toward the player. “Your words are false, false, sir! Kind Heaven, they must be.”

“Pardon, Sire,” pleaded Hart; “I know not what I do or say. Only love for Nell led me to this spot.”

“Love!” cried Nell, with the irony of sadness. “Oh, inhuman, to spy out my ways, resort to mean device, involve my honour, and call the motive love!”

“You are cruel, cruel, Nell,” sobbed Hart; and he turned away his eyes. He could not look at her.

“Love!” continued Nell, bitterly. “True love would come alone, filled with gentle admonition. I pity you, friend Hart, that God has made you thus!”“No more, no more!” Hart quite broke beneath the strain.

“Dost hear, dost hear?” cried Charles, in ecstasy, deeply affected by Nell’s exposition of true love. “Sir, you are the second to-night to belie the dearest name in England. You shall answer well to me.”

“Ask the lady, Sire,” pleaded Hart, in desperation. “I’ll stake my life upon her reply.”

“Nell?–Nell?” questioned the King; for he could scarce refuse to accept her word when a player had placed unquestioned faith in it.

Nell hid her face in her silken kerchief and burst into seeming spasmodic sobs of grief. “Sire!” was all the response the King could hear. He trembled violently and his face grew white. He did not know that Nell’s tears were merry laughs.

“Her tears convict her,” exclaimed Hart, triumphantly.

“I’ll not believe it,” cried the King.

Nell became more hysterical. She sobbed and sobbed, as though her heart would break, her face buried in her hands and her flying curls falling over and hiding all.

“Adair’s sides are aching,” she chuckled, in apparent convulsions of sorrow. “He’s laughing through Nell’s tears.”

Meanwhile, Moll had been standing by the window; and, though she was watching eagerly the exciting scene within the room, she could not fail to note the sound of galloping horses and the rattling of a heavy coach on the roadway without.

“A coach and six at break-neck speed,” she cried, “have landed at the door. A cavalier alights.”

“Time some one arrived,” thought Nell, as she glanced at herself in the mirror, to see that Adair was well hidden, and to arrange her curls, to bewitch the new arrivals, whosoever they might be.

As the cavalier dashed up the path, in the moonlight, Moll recognized the Duke of Buckingham, and at once announced his name.

“Ods-pitikins!” exclaimed Charles, angrily. “No leisure for Buckingham now. We have other business.”He had scarce spoken, however, when Buckingham, unceremoniously and almost breathless, entered the room.

“How now?” cried the King, fiercely, as the Duke fell on his knee before him; for his temper had been wrought to a high pitch.

“Pardon, your Majesty,” besought his lordship, in nervous accents. “My mission will excuse my haste and interruption. Your ear I crave one moment. Sire, I am told Nell has to-night secreted in this house a lover!”

“Another one!” whispered Nell to Moll.

“’Tis hearsay,” cried the King, now at fever-heat, “the give-and-take of gossips! I’ll none of it.”

“My witness, Sire!” answered Buckingham.

He turned toward the door; and there, to the astonishment of all, stood the Duchess of Portsmouth, who had followed him from the coach, a lace mantilla, caught up in her excitement, protecting her shapely shoulders and head.As the assembled courtiers looked upon the beautiful rivals, standing, as they did, face to face before the King, and realized the situation, their faces grew grave, indeed.

The suspense became intense.

“The day of reckoning’s come,” thought Nell, as she met with burning glances the Duchess’s eyes.

“Speak, your grace,” exhorted Buckingham. “The King attends you.”

“Nay, before all, my lord?” protested Portsmouth, with pretended delicacy. “I could not do Madame Gwyn so much injustice.”

“If your speech concerns me,” observed Nell, mildly, “out with it boldly. My friends will consider the source.”

“Speak, and quickly!” commanded Charles.

“I would rather lose my tongue,” still protested the Duchess, “than speak such words of any one; but my duty to your Majesty–”

“No preludes,” interrupted the King; and he meant it, too. He was done with trifling, and the Duchess saw it.

“My servants,” she said, with a virtuous look, “passing this abode by chance, this very night, saw at a questionable hour a strange cavalier entering the boudoir of Madame Gwyn!”

“She would make my honour the price of her revenge,” thought Nell, her eyes flashing. “She shall rue those words, or Adair’s head and mine are one for naught.”

“What say you to this, Nell?” asked the King, the words choking in his throat.

“Sire,–I–I–” answered Nell, evasively. “There’s some mistake or knavery!”

“She hesitates,” interpolated the Duchess, eagerly.

“You change colour, wench,” cried Charles, his heart, indeed, again upon the rack. “Ho, without there! Search the house.”

An officer entered quickly to obey the mandate.

“Stay, Sire,” exclaimed Nell, raising herself to her full height, her hot, trembling lips compressed, her cheeks aflame. “My oath, I have not seen Adair’s face this night.”

Her words fell upon the assemblage like thunder from a June-day sky. The King’s face brightened. The Duchess’s countenance grew pale as death.

Mon Dieu! Adair!” she gasped in startled accents to Lord Buckingham, attendant at her side. “Could it be he my servants saw? The packet! Fool! Why did I give it him?”

Buckingham trembled violently. He was even more startled than Portsmouth; for he had more to lose. England was his home and France was hers.

“The scales are turning against us,” he whispered. “Throw in this ring for safety. Nell’s gift to Adair; you understand.”

He slipped, unobserved, upon the Duchess’s finger the jewelled ring the King had given to Almahyde among the roses at the performance of “Granada.”

“Yes! Yes! ’Tis my only chance,” she answered, catching at his meaning; for her wits were of the sharpest in intrigue and cunning, and she possessed the boldness too to execute her plans.

She approached the King, with the confident air possessed by great women who have been bred at court.

“Your Majesty recognizes this ring?” she asked in mildest accents.

“The one I gave to Nell!” answered the astonished King.

“The one Adair this night gave to me,” said Portsmouth, calmly.

“’Tis false!” cried Nell, who could restrain her tongue no longer. “I gave that ring to dear old Strings.”

“A rare jewel to bestow upon a fiddler,” said the Duchess, sarcastically.

“It is true,” said Strings, who had wormed his way through the group at mention of his name and now stood the meek central figure at the strange hearing. “My little ones were starving, Sire; and Nell gave me the ring–all she had. They could not eat the gold; so I sold it to the Duke of Buckingham!”

“We are lost,” whispered Buckingham to Portsmouth, scarce audibly.

“Coward!” sneered the Duchess, contemptuously. “I am not ready to sail for France so soon.”

The King stood irresolute. Events had transpired so quickly that he scarce knew what it was best to do. His troubled spirit longed for a further hearing, while his heart demanded the ending of the scene with a peremptory word.

Before he could decide upon his course, the Duchess had swept across the room, with queenly grace.

“Our hostess will pardon my eyes for wandering,” she said, undaunted; “but her abode is filled with pleasant surprises. Sire, here is a piece of handiwork.”

She knelt by the couch, and drew from under it a coat of gray, one sleeve of which had caught her eye.

Nell looked at Moll with reproving glances.

“Marry, ’tis Strings’s, of course,” continued Portsmouth, dangling the coat before the wondering eyes of all. “The lace, the ruffle, becomes his complexion. He fits everything here so beautifully.”

As she turned the garment slowly about, she caught sight of a package of papers protruding from its inner pocket, sealed with her own seal. For the first time, the significance of the colour of the coat came home to her.

Mon Dieu,” she cried, “Adair’s coat.–The packet!”

Her fingers sought the papers eagerly; but Nell’s eye and hand were too quick for her.

“Not so fast, dear Duchess,” said Nell, sweetly, passing the little packet to his Majesty. “Our King must read these papers–and between the lines as well.”

“Enough of this!” commanded Charles. “What is it?”

“Some papers, Sire,” said Nell, pointedly, “given for a kiss and taken with a kiss. I have not had time to read them.”

“Some family papers, Sire,” asserted the Duchess, with assumed indifference, “stolen from my house.”

She would have taken them from his Majesty, so great, indeed, was her boldness; but Nell again stayed her.

“Aye, stolen,” said Nell, sharply; “but by the hostess herself–from her unsuspecting, royal guest. There, Sire, stands the only thief!” She pointed accusingly at Portsmouth.

“My signature!” cried Charles, as he ran his eye down a parchment. “The treaties! No more Parliaments for England. I agreed to that.”

“I agree to that myself,” said Nell, roguishly. “England’s King is too great to need Parliaments. The King should have a confidential adviser, however–not French,” and she cast a defiant glance at Portsmouth, “but English. Read on; read on.”

She placed her pretty cheek as near as possible to the King’s as she followed the letters over his shoulder.

“A note to Bouillon!” he said, perusing the parchments further. “Charles consents to the fall of Luxembourg. I did not sign all this. I see it all: Louis’s ambition to rule the world, England’s King debased by promises won and royal contracts made with a clever woman–forgery mixed with truth. Sweet Heaven, what have I done!”“The papers have not gone, Sire,” blandly remarked Nell.

“Thanks to you, my Nell,” said Charles. He addressed Portsmouth sharply: “Madame, your coach awaits you.”

“But, Sire,” replied the Duchess, who was brave to the last, “Madame Gwyn has yet Adair to answer for!”

“Adair will answer for himself!” cried Nell, triumphantly.

She threw aside the pink gown and stood as Adair before the astonished eyes of all.

“At your service,” she said, bowing sweetly to the Duchess.

“A player’s trick!” cried Portsmouth, haughtily, as a parting shot of contempt.

“Yes, Portsmouth,” replied Nell, still in sweetest accents, “to show where lies the true and where the false.”

“You are a witch,” hissed Portsmouth.

“You are the King’s true love,” exclaimed the Merry Monarch. “To my arms, Nell, to my arms; for you first taught me the meaning of true love! Buckingham, you forget your courtesy. Her grace wishes to be escorted to her coach.”

“ONCE MORE YOU HAVE SAVED ME.”

Bon voyage, madame,” said Nell, demurely, as the Duchess took Buckingham’s arm and departed.

The King’s eyes fell upon the player, Hart, who was still in custody.

“Away with this wretch!” he cried, incensed at his conduct. “I am not done with him.”

“Forgive him, Sire,” interceded Nell. “He took his cue from Heaven, and good has come of it.”

“True, Nell,” said the King, mercifully. Then he turned to Hart: “You are free; but henceforth act the knave only on the stage.” Hart bowed with shame and withdrew.

“Sire, Sire,” exclaimed Strings, forgetting his decorum in his eagerness.

“Well, Strings?” inquired the King, good-humouredly; for there was now no cloud in his sky.

“Let me play the exit for the villains?” he pleaded unctuously. “The old fiddle is just bursting with tunes.”“You shall, Strings,” replied his Majesty, “and on a Cremona. From to-day, you lead the royal orchestra.”

“Odsbud,” cried Strings, gleefully, “I can offer Jack Hart an engagement.”

“Just retribution, Strings,” laughed Nell, happily. “Can you do as much for Nell, and forgive her, Sire?”

“It is I who should ask your pardon, Nell,” exclaimed the King, ecstatically, throwing both arms passionately about her. “You are Charles’s queen; you should be England’s.”

So the story ends, as all good stories should, in a perfect, unbroken dream of love.

emblem

EPILOGUE

Spoken by Miss Crosman for the first time in New York at the Bijou Theatre on the evening of October 9, 1900:

Good friends, before we end the play,
I beg you all a moment stay:
I warn my sex, by Nell’s affair,
Against a rascal called Adair!


If lovers’ hearts you’d truly scan,
Odsfish, perk up, and be a man!


GROSSET & DUNLAP’S

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Original, sincere and courageous–often amusing–the kind that are making theatrical history.

MADAME X. By Alexandre Bisson and J. W. McConaughy. Illustrated with scenes from the play.

A beautiful Parisienne became an outcast because her husband would not forgive an error of her youth. Her love for her son is the great final influence in her career. A tremendous dramatic success.

THE GARDEN OF ALLAH. By Robert Hichens.

An unconventional English woman and an inscrutable stranger meet and love in an oasis of the Sahara. Staged this season with magnificent cast and gorgeous properties.

THE PRINCE OF INDIA. By Lew. Wallace.

A glowing romance of the Byzantine Empire, presenting with extraordinary power the siege of Constantinople, and lighting its tragedy with the warm underglow of an Oriental romance. As a play it is a great dramatic spectacle.

TESS OF THE STORM COUNTRY. By Grace Miller White. Illust. by Howard Chandler Christy.

A girl from the dregs of society, loves a young Cornell University student, and it works startling changes in her life and the lives of those about her. The dramatic version is one of the sensations of the season.

YOUNG WALLINGFORD. By George Randolph Chester. Illust. by F. R. Gruger and Henry Raleigh.

A series of clever swindles conducted by a cheerful young man, each of which is just on the safe side of a State’s prison offense. As “Get-Rich-Quick Wallingford,” it is probably the most amusing expose of money manipulation ever seen on the stage.

THE INTRUSION OF JIMMY. By P. G. Wodehouse. Illustrations by Will Grefe.

Social and club life in London and New York, an amateur burglary adventure and a love story. Dramatized under the title of “A Gentleman of Leisure,” it furnishes hours of laughter to the play-goers.

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WITHIN THE LAW. By Bayard Veiller & Marvin Dana Illustrated by Wm. Charles Cooke.

This is a novelization of the immensely successful play which ran for two years in New York and Chicago.

The plot of this powerful novel is of a young woman’s revenge directed against her employer who allowed her to be sent to prison for three years on a charge of theft, of which she was innocent.

WHAT HAPPENED TO MARY. By Robert Carlton Brown. Illustrated with scenes from the play.

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The story of Mary is being told in moving pictures and played in theatres all over the world.

THE RETURN OF PETER GRIMM. By David Belasco, Illustrated by John Rae.

This is a novelization of the popular play in which David War, field, as Old Peter Grimm, scored such a remarkable success.

The story is spectacular and extremely pathetic but withal, powerful, both as a book and as a play.

THE GARDEN OF ALLAH. By Robert Hichens.

This novel is an intense, glowing epic of the great desert, sunlit barbaric, with its marvelous atmosphere of vastness and loneliness.

It is a book of rapturous beauty, vivid in word painting. The play has been staged with magnificent cast and gorgeous properties.

BEN HUR. A Tale of the Christ. By General Lew Wallace.

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BOUGHT AND PAID FOR. By George Broadhurst and Arthur Hornblow. Illustrated with scenes from the play.

A stupendous arraignment of modern marriage which has created an interest on the stage that is almost unparalleled. The scenes are laid in New York, and deal with conditions among both the rich and poor.

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BEN HUR. A Tale of the Christ. By General Lew Wallace

This famous Religious-Historical Romance with its mighty story, brilliant pageantry, thrilling action and deep religious reverence, hardly requires an outline. The whole world has placed “Ben-Hur” on a height of pre-eminence which no other novel of its time has reached. The clashing of rivalry and the deepest human passions, the perfect reproduction of brilliant Roman life, and the tense, fierce atmosphere of the arena have kept their deep fascination.

THE PRINCE OF INDIA. By General Lew Wallace

A glowing romance of the Byzantine Empire, showing, with vivid imagination, the possible forces behind the internal decay of the Empire that hastened the fall of Constantinople.

The foreground figure is the person known to all as the Wandering Jew, at this time appearing as the Prince of India, with vast stores of wealth, and is supposed to have instigated many wars and fomented the Crusades.

Mohammed’s love for the Princess Irene is beautifully wrought into the story, and the book as a whole is a marvelous work both historically and romantically.

THE FAIR GOD. By General Lew Wallace. A Tale of the Conquest of Mexico. With Eight Illustrations by Eric Pape.

All the annals of conquest have nothing more brilliantly daring and dramatic than the drama played in Mexico by Cortes. As a dazzling picture of Mexico and the Montezumas it leaves nothing to be desired.

The artist has caught with rare enthusiasm the spirit of the Spanish conquerors of Mexico, its beauty and glory and romance.

TARRY THOU TILL I COME or, Salathiel, the Wandering Jew. By George Croly. With twenty illustrations by T. de Thulstrup

A historical novel, dealing with the momentous events that occurred, chiefly in Palestine, from the time of the Crucifixion to the, destruction of Jerusalem.

The book, as a story, is replete with Oriental charm and richness and the character drawing is marvelous. No other novel ever written has portrayed with such vividness the events that convulsed Rome and destroyed Jerusalem in the early days of Christanity.

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RIDERS OF THE PURPLE SAGE, By Zane Grey. Illustrated by Douglas Duer.

In this picturesque romance of Utah of some forty years ago, we are permitted to see the unscrupulous methods employed by the invisible hand of the Mormon Church to break the will of those refusing to conform to its rule.

FRIAR TUCK, By Robert Alexander Wason. Illustrated by Stanley L. Wood.

Happy Hawkins tells us, in his humorous way, how Friar Tuck lived among the Cowboys, how he adjusted their quarrels and love affairs and how he fought with them and for them when occasion required.

THE SKY PILOT, By Ralph Connor.

Illustrated by Louis Rhead.

There is no novel, dealing with the rough existence of cowboys, so charming in the telling, abounding as it does with the freshest and the truest pathos.

THE EMIGRANT TRAIL, By Geraldine Bonner. Colored frontispiece by John Rae.

The book relates the adventures of a party on its overland pilgrimage, and the birth and growth of the absorbing love of two strong men for a charming heroine.

THE BOSS OF WIND RIVER, By A. M. Chisholm.

Illustrated by Frank Tenney Johnson.

This is a strong, virile novel with the lumber industry for its central theme and a love story full of interest as a sort of subplot.

A PRAIRIE COURTSHIP, By Harold Bindloss.

A story of Canadian prairies in which the hero is stirred, through the influence of his love for a woman, to settle down to the heroic business of pioneer farming.

JOYCE OF THE NORTH WOODS, By Harriet T. Comstock.

Illustrated by John Cassel.

A story of the deep woods that shows the power of love at work among its primitive dwellers. It is a tensely moving study of the human heart and its aspirations that unfolds itself through thrilling situations and dramatic developments.

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THE NOVELS OF

STEWART EDWARD WHITE

THE RULES OF THE GAME. Illustrated by Lajaren A. Killer

The romance of the son of “The Riverman.” The young college hero goes into the lumber camp, is antagonized by “graft” and comes into the romance of his life.

ARIZONA NIGHTS. Illus. and cover inlay by N. C. Wyeth.

A series of spirited tales emphasizing some phases of the life of the ranch, plains and desert. A masterpiece.

THE BLAZED TRAIL. With illustrations by Thomas Fogarty.

A wholesome story with gleams of humor, telling of a young man who blazed his way to fortune through the heart of the Michigan pines.

THE CLAIM JUMPERS. A Romance.

The tenderfoot manager of a mine in a lonesome gulch of the Black Hills has a hard time of it, but “wins out” in more ways than one.

CONJUROR’S HOUSE. Illustrated Theatrical Edition.

Dramatized under the title of “The Call of the North.”

Conjuror’s House is a Hudson Bay trading post where the head factor is the absolute lord. A young fellow risked his life and won a bride on this forbidden land.

THE MAGIC FOREST. A Modern Fairy Tale. Illustrated.

The sympathetic way in which the children of the wild and their life is treated could only belong to one who is in love with the forest and open air. Based on fact.

THE RIVERMAN. Illus. by N. C. Wyeth and C. Underwood.

The story of a man’s fight against a river and of a struggle between honesty and grit on the one side, and dishonesty and shrewdness on the other.

THE SILENT PLACES. Illustrations by Philip R. Goodwin.

The wonders of the northern forests, the heights of feminine devotion, and masculine power, the intelligence of the Caucasian and the instinct of the Indian, are all finely drawn in this story.

THE WESTERNERS.

A story of the Black Hills that is justly placed among the best American novels. It portrays the life of the new West as no other book has done in recent years.

THE MYSTERY. In collaboration with Samuel Hopkins Adams

Grosset & Dunlap, 526 West 26th St., New York


JOHN FOX, JR’S.

STORIES OF THE KENTUCKY MOUNTAINS

May be had wherever books are sold. Ask for Grosset and Dunlap’s list.

THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE.

Illustrated by F. C. Yohn.

The “lonesome pine” from which the story takes its name was a tall tree that stood in solitary splendor on a mountain top. The fame of the pine lured a young engineer through Kentucky to catch the trail, and when he finally climbed to its shelter he found not only the pine but the foot-prints of a girl. And the girl proved to be lovely, piquant, and the trail of these girlish foot-prints led the young engineer a madder chase than “the trail of the lonesome pine.”

THE LITTLE SHEPHERD OF KINGDOM COME

Illustrated by F. C. Yohn.

This is a story of Kentucky, in a settlement known as “Kingdom Come.” It is a life rude, semi-barbarous; but natural and honest, from which often springs the flower of civilization.

“Chad,” the “little shepherd” did not know who he was nor whence he came–he had just wandered from door to door since early childhood, seeking shelter with kindly mountaineers who gladly fathered and mothered this waif about whom there was such a mystery–a charming waif, by the way, who could play the banjo better that anyone else in the mountains.

A KNIGHT OF THE CUMBERLAND.

Illustrated by F. C. Yohn.

The scenes are laid along the waters of the Cumberland the lair of moonshiner and feudsman. The knight is a moonshiner’s son, and the heroine a beautiful girl perversely christened “The Blight.” Two impetuous young Southerners’ fall under the spell of “The Blight’s” charms and she learns what a large part jealousy and pistols have in the love making of the mountaineers.

Included in this volume is “Hell fer-Sartain” and other stories, some of Mr. Fox’s most entertaining Cumberland valley narratives.

Ask for a complete free list of G. & D. Popular Copyrighted Fiction
Grosset & Dunlap, 526 West 26th St., New York


STORIES OF RARE CHARM

GENE STRATTON-PORTER

May be had wherever books are sold. Ask for Grosset and Dunlap’s list.

THE HARVESTER

Illustrated by W. L. Jacobs

“The Harvester,” David Langston, is a man of the woods and fields, who draws his living from the prodigal hand of Mother Nature herself. If the book had nothing in it but the splendid figure of this man, with his sure grip on life, his superb optimism, and his almost miraculous knowledge of nature secrets, it would be notable. But when the Girl comes to his “Medicine Woods,” and the Harvester’s whole sound, healthy, large outdoor being realizes that this is the highest point of life which has come to him–there begins a romance, troubled and interrupted, yet of the rarest idyllic quality.

FRECKLES. Decorations by E. Stetson Crawford

Freckles is a nameless waif when the tale opens, but the way in which he takes hold of life; the nature friendships he forms in the great Limberlost Swamp; the manner in which everyone who meets him succumbs to the charm of his engaging personality; and his love-story with “The Angel” are full of real sentiment,

A GIRL OF THE LIMBERLOST

Illustrated by Wladyslaw T. Brenda.

The story of a girl of the Michigan woods; a buoyant, lovable type of the self-reliant American. Her philosophy is one of love and kindness towards all things; her hope is never dimmed. And by the sheer beauty of her soul, and the purity of her vision, she wins from barren and unpromising surroundings those rewards of high courage.

It is an inspiring story of a life worth while and the rich beauties of the out-of-doors are strewn through all its pages.

AT THE FOOT OF THE RAINBOW.

Illustrations in colors by Oliver Kemp. Design and decorations by Ralph Fletcher Seymour.

The scene of this charming, idyllic love story is laid in Central Indiana. The story is one of devoted friendship, and tender self-sacrificing love; the friendship that gives freely without return, and the love that seeks first the happiness of the object. The novel is brimful of the most beautiful word painting of nature, and its pathos and tender sentiment will endear it to all.

Ask for a complete free list of G. & D. Popular Copyrighted Fiction
Grosset & Dunlap, 526 West 26th St., New York


CHARMING BOOKS FOR GIRLS

May be had wherever books are sold. Ask for Grosset & Dunlap’s list

WHEN PATTY WENT TO COLLEGE, By Jean Webster. Illustrated by C. D. Williams.

One of the best stories of life in a girl’s college that has ever been written. It is bright, whimsical and entertaining, lifelike, laughable and thoroughly human.

JUST PATTY, By Jean Webster. Illustrated by C. M. Relyea.

Patty is full of the joy of living, fun-loving, given to ingenious mischief for its own sake, with a disregard for pretty convention which is an unfailing source of joy to her fellows.

THE POOR LITTLE RICH GIRL, By Eleanor Gates. With four full page illustrations.

This story relates the experience of one of those unfortunate children whose early days are passed in the companionship of a governess, seldom seeing either parent, and famishing for natural love and tenderness. A charming play as dramatized by the author.

REBECCA OF SUNNYBROOK FARM, By Kate Douglas Wiggin.

One of the most beautiful studies of childhood–Rebecca’s artistic, unusual and quaintly charming qualities stand out midst a circle of austere New Englanders. The stage version is making a phenomenal dramatic record.

NEW CHRONICLES OF REBECCA, By Kate Douglas Wiggin. Illustrated by F. C. Yohn.

Additional episodes in the girlhood of this delightful heroine that carry Rebecca through various stages to her eighteenth birthday.

REBECCA MARY, By Annie Hamilton Donnell. Illustrated by Elizabeth Shippen Green.

This author possesses the rare gift of portraying all the grotesque little joys and sorrows and scruples of this very small girl with a pathos that is peculiarly genuine and appealing.

EMMY LOU: Her Book and Heart, By George Madden Martin, Illustrated by Charles Louis Hinton.

Emmy Lou is irresistibly lovable, because she is so absolutely real. She is; just a bewitchingly innocent, hugable little maid. The book is wonderfully human.

Ask for a complete free list of G. & D. Popular Copyrighted Fiction
Grosset & Dunlap, 526 West 26th St., New York


THE NOVELS OF

CLARA LOUISE BURNHAM

May be had wherever books are sold. Ask for Grosset and Dunlap’s list.

JEWEL: A Chapter in Her Life. Illustrated by Maude and Genevieve Cowles.

A sweet, dainty story, breathing the doctrine of love and patience; and sweet nature and cheerfulness.

JEWEL’S STORY BOOK. Illustrated by Albert Schmitt.

A sequel to “Jewel” and equally enjoyable.

CLEVER BETSY. Illustrated by Rose O’Neill.

The “Clever Betsy” was a boat–named for the unyielding spinster whom the captain hoped to marry. Through the two Betsys a clever group of people are introduced to the reader.

SWEET CLOVER: A Romance of the White City.

A story of Chicago at the time of the World’s Fair. A sweet human story that touches the heart.

THE OPENED SHUTTERS. Frontispiece by Harrison Fisher.

A summer haunt on an island in Casco Bay is the background for this romance. A beautiful woman, at discord with life, is brought to realize, by her new friends, that she may open the shutters of her soul to the blessed sunlight of joy by casting aside vanity and self love. A delicately humorous work with a lofty motive underlying it all.

THE RIGHT PRINCESS.

An amusing story, opening at a fashionable Long Island resort, where a stately Englishwoman employs a forcible New England housekeeper to serve in her interesting home. How types so widely apart react on each other’s lives, all to ultimate good, makes a story both humorous and rich in sentiment.

THE LEAVEN OF LOVE. Frontispiece by Harrison Fisher.

At a Southern California resort a world-weary woman, young and beautiful but disillusioned, meets a girl who has learned the art of living–of tasting life in all its richness, opulence and joy. The story hinges upon the change wrought in the soul of the blasÈ woman by this glimpse into a cheery life.

Ask for a complete free list of G. & D. Popular Copyrighted Fiction
Grosset & Dunlap, 526 West 26th St., New York


LOUIS TRACY’S

CAPTIVATING AND EXHILARATING ROMANCES

May be had wherever books are sold. Ask for Grosset & Dunlap’s list

CYNTHIA’S CHAUFFEUR. Illustrated by Howard Chandler Christy.

A pretty American girl in London is touring in a car with a chauffeur whose identity puzzles her. An amusing mystery.

THE STOWAWAY GIRL. Illustrated by Nesbitt Benson.

A shipwreck, a lovely girl stowaway, a rascally captain, a fascinating officer, and thrilling adventures in South Seas.

THE CAPTAIN OF THE KANSAS.

Love and the salt sea, a helpless ship whirled into the hands of cannibals, desperate fighting and a tender romance.

THE MESSAGE. Illustrated by Joseph Cummings Chase.

A bit of parchment found in the figurehead of an old vessel tells of a buried treasure. A thrilling mystery develops.

THE PILLAR OF LIGHT.

The pillar thus designated was a lighthouse, and the author tells with exciting detail the terrible dilemma of its cut-off inhabitants.

THE WHEEL O’FORTUNE. With illustrations by James Montgomery Flagg.

The story deals with the finding of a papyrus containing the particulars of some of the treasures of the Queen of Sheba.

A SON OF THE IMMORTALS. Illustrated by Howard Chandler Christy.

A young American is proclaimed king of a little Balkan Kingdom, and a pretty Parisian art student is the power behind the throne.

THE WINGS OF THE MORNING.

A sort of Robinson Crusoe redivivus with modern setting and a very pretty love story added. The hero and heroine are the only survivors of a wreck, and have many thrilling adventures en their desert island.

Ask for a complete free list of G. & D. Popular Copyrighted Fiction
Grosset & Dunlap, 526 West 26th St., New York


B. M. Bower’s Novels

Thrilling Western Romances

Large 12 mos. Handsomely bound in cloth. Illustrated

CHIP, OF THE FLYING U

A breezy wholesome tale, wherein the love affairs of Chip and Della Whitman are charmingly and humorously told. Chip’s jealousy of Dr. Cecil Grantham, who turns out to be a big, blue eyed young woman is very amusing. A clever, realistic story of the American Cow-puncher.

THE HAPPY FAMILY

A lively and amusing story, dealing with the adventures of eighteen jovial, big hearted Montana cowboys. Foremost amongst them, we find Ananias Green, known as Andy, whose imaginative powers cause many lively and exciting adventures.

HER PRAIRIE KNIGHT

A realistic story of the plains, describing a gay party of Easterners who exchange a cottage at Newport for the rough homeliness of a Montana ranch-house. The merry-hearted cowboys, the fascinating Beatrice, and the effusive Sir Redmond, become living, breathing personalities.

THE RANGE DWELLERS

Here are everyday, genuine cowboys, just as they really exist. Spirited action, a range feud between two families, and a Romeo and Juliet courtship make this a bright, jolly, entertaining story, without a dull page.

THE LURE OF DIM TRAILS

A vivid portrayal of the experience of an Eastern author, among the cowboys of the West, in search of “local color” for a new novel. “Bud” Thurston learns many a lesson while following “the lure of the dim trails” but the hardest, and probably the most welcome, is that of love.

THE LONESOME TRAIL

“Weary” Davidson leaves the ranch for Portland, where conventional city life palls on him. A little branch of sage brush, pungent with the atmosphere of the prairie, and the recollection of a pair of large brown eyes soon compel his return. A wholesome love story.

THE LONG SHADOW

A vigorous Western story, sparkling with the free, outdoor, life a mountain ranch. Its scenes shift rapidly and its actors play the game of life fearlessly and like men. It is a fine love story from start to finish.

Ask for a complete free list of G. & D. Popular Copyrighted Fiction
Grosset & Dunlap, 526 West 26th St., New York


NOVELS OF SOUTHERN LIFE

By THOMAS DIXON, JR.

May be had wherever books are sold. Ask for Grosset & Dunlap’s list

THE LEOPARD’S SPOTS: A Story of the White Man’s Burden, 1865-1900. With illustrations by C. D. Williams.

A tale of the South about the dramatic events of Destruction, Reconstruction and Upbuilding. The work is able and eloquent and the verifiable events of history are followed closely in the development of a story full of struggle.

THE CLANSMAN. With illustrations by Arthur I. Keller.

While not connected with it in any way, this is a companion volume to the author’s “epoch-making” story The Leopard’s Spots. It is a novel with a great deal to it, and which very properly is going to interest many thousands of readers. * * * It is, first of all, a forceful, dramatic, absorbing love story, with a sequence of events so surprising that one is prepared for the fact that much of it is founded on actual happenings; but Mr. Dixon has, as before, a deeper purpose–he has aimed to show that the original formers of the Ku Klux Klan were modern knights errant taking the only means at hand to right intolerable wrongs.

THE TRAITOR. A Story of the Fall of the Invisible Empire. Illustrations by C. D. Williams.

The third and last book in this remarkable trilogy of novels relating to Southern Reconstruction. It is a thrilling story of love, adventure, treason, and the United States Secret Service dealing with the decline and fall of the Ku Klux Klan.

COMRADES. Illustrations by C. D. Williams.

A novel dealing with the establishment of a Socialistic Colony upon a deserted island off the coast of California. The way of disillusionment is the course over which Mr. Dixon conducts the reader.

THE ONE WOMAN. A Story of Modern Utopia.

A love story and character study of three strong men and two fascinating women. In swift, unified, and dramatic action, we see Socialism a deadly force, in the hour of the eclipse of Faith, destroying the home life and weakening the fiber of Anglo Saxon manhood.

Ask for a complete free list of G. & D. Popular Copyrighted Fiction
Grosset & Dunlap, 526 West 26th St., New York






                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           

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