Publisher's Synopsis
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1894 edition. Excerpt: ... chapter xv. austin gray. A thousand pleasant hopes That fill your heart with happiness.--The Spanish Student, Earth's stablest things are shadows, And, in the life to come, Hiply some chance-saved trifle May tell of this old home; As now sometimes we seem to find In a dark crevice of the mind, Some relic, which, long pondered o'er, Hints faintly at a life before.--James Russell Lowell. When six weeks had gone by we were still lingering on at Naples. The place suited us perfectly, and Mother seemed better and brighter than she had done at any time since our dear Tom's death. The climate was perfect, we could sit out of doors watching the lovely blue sea rippling under the yet bluer sky, when it made us all shiver to even think of sitting down for a moment in the open at home in England. And we took advantage of the possibility, every one of us, for the hotel had a charming garden with a terrace and we used to sit there for hours together. I well remember one afternoon that my Father had gone down into the town--if the truth be told on the look-out for some queer old plates of which he had heard the previous day and which, from the description given by a young American staying in the hotel, he believed to be of great value. They were in a rather squalid part of the town and he had preferred to go alone. Mother was busy writing to Madge and also to Dick, whose birthday was drawing near and who was steadily making way at the business which he had chosen for his walk in life. She was writing at the window of our sitting-room and I was sitting in the sunshine with a big white umbrella and a book, when Mr. Gray came out of the hotel and joined me. I had seen him before that day, for he always sat near to us at meals, and I quite thought that he...