The Attic Guest

THE ATTIC GUEST

Reading edition

A NOVEL

By ROBERT E. KNOWLES

Author of "The Web of Time" "St. Cuthbert's" etc.

New York Chicago Toronto Fleming H. Revell Company London and Edinburgh

New York: 158 Fifth Avenue Chicago: 80 Wabash Avenue Toronto: 25 Richmond Street, W. London: 21 Paternoster Square Edinburgh: 100 Princes Street

To My Father

FOREWORD

This story, which the authoress herself entitled "The Attic Guest," would probably have never been given to the world but for an incidental visit which I paid to a certain manse. It was then and there that the following chapters, now first presented to the public, were entrusted to my hands. The hands which placed the manuscript in my own were those of a lady of much charm, modest, cultured, winsome; and no one could know her without feeling that her qualities of heart were even greater than of intellect. She was a minister's wife, as I need hardly say; and the busy years in that most mellow of all vineyards had given her face much of its own spiritual beauty, something of the deep harvest-joy shining through her eyes. Tranquil eyes were hers, chastened by many a sorrow, yet aglow with a native merriment that the stern schooling of a lifetime seemed powerless to subdue.

She asked that I would read her story; "and send it forth," said she, "if your heart approve."

Her plea for asking this service at my hands was that I had had some humble association with the world of letters. Mayhap she thought this pleased me well—and perhaps it did. I urged her to send her book forth with her own name upon it—but this she firmly refused. She shrank from the publicity it would involve, she said, as must any Southern lady. I believed her implicitly. "Especially," she went on—dwelling earnestly on this—"since my book is the frank and artless story of the most sacred things of life, of a woman's life at that. Some will smile," said she, "and some deride, and many disbelieve; but the story is the story of my inmost work and life and love. Let it see the light if you think it worthy."

I promised; and thus my promise is redeemed and my humble part is done.

ROBERT E. KNOWLES. Galt, Ontario.

CONTENTS

I. The Light Fantastic II. Just Eighteen III. The Bridge That Lay Between IV. The Danger Zone V. An Alternative VI. The Glint of the Heather VII. "The Glory of Their Strength" VIII. Dealings with the Samaritans IX. Love's Tutorship X. The River Leading to the Sea XI. A Mother Confessor XII. The Wail of the Lowly XIII. The Lynching XIV. Girding on the Armour XV. "Our Lady of the Snows" XVI. A Knightly Guest XVII. My Ordination XVIII. The Dayspring from on High XIX. The Taint of Heresy XX. Harold's Sister—and Another XXI. "Love's Old Sweet Song" XXII. When Joy and Sorrow Meet XXIII. "The Voice of Rachel" XXIV. "Come, Ettrick; Yarrow, Come" XXV. A Select Congregation XXVI. The News a Broker Brought XXVII. Where Gus Cast Anchor XXVIII. "To Old Point Comfort, Dear" XXIX. The Hour of Healing XXX. Eden in the Attic