



Produced by Al Haines








  _THE ATTIC GUEST_

  _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_




  Copyright, 1909, by
  FLEMING H. REVELL COMPANY



  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




_THE ATTIC GUEST_



I

_THE LIGHT FANTASTIC_

"That room in the third story is good enough for any elder," my mother
was saying as I came into the library; "more than likely they'll send
us a country elder anyhow, and he'll never know the difference--he'll
think it's the spare room, I reckon."

I was only eighteen then, and I didn't care much where elders slept, or
whether they slept at all or not.  Besides, it was already nine
o'clock, and I was going to a little party where "Tripping the light
fantastic" was to be the order of the evening.  By the way, I only
found out the other day that Milton was the author of that fantastic
toe phrase--and the news startled me about as much as if some one had
told me Cromwell invented "Blind Man's Buff."

"Has Dinah got me buttoned right?" I asked, backing up to my Aunt
Agnes.  Aunt Agnes was my mother's sister.  I can see her yet, her
hands going up in an abstracted kind of way to correct one of Dinah's
oversights; for she was still revolving the great question of the elder
and the attic, the attic and the elder.

"You're all right now, honey," she said in a moment, giving me a gentle
push away, her whole mind reverting to the subject of family concern.

"I'm sure," she went on in the same breath, "it's going to be an elder
from the country.  Mr. Furvell told me to wait after prayer-meeting
last night; and he said the billeting committee sat till two in the
morning trying to divide the ministers and elders as fairly as they
could--and he thought we were going to get an elder from Pollocksville."

"Let us hear what Henry thinks about it," my mother suddenly
interrupted, her face turned towards the door as she spoke.  "Sit here,
Henry," as she made room on the sofa for my uncle; "sister Agnes thinks
it will be dreadful to send our delegate to the attic if he's to be a
minister--but she doesn't mind a bit if he's an elder."

My uncle smiled as he took his place beside my mother.  And the face
that was turned in fondness upon his wife at the other