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THE DESERT AND THE SOWN


By Mary Hallock Foote




CONTENTS


I. A COUNCIL OF THE ELDERS

II. INTRODUCING A SON-IN-LAW

III. THE INITIAL LOVE

IV. "A MAN THAT HAD A WELL IN HIS OWN COURT"

V. DISINHERITED

VI. AN APPEAL TO NATURE

VII. MARKING TIME

VIII. A HUNTER'S DIARY

IX. THE POWER OF WEAKNESS

X. THE WHITE PERIL

XI. A SEARCHING OF HEARTS

XII. THE BLOOD-WITE

XIII. CURTAIN

XIV. KIND INQUIRIES

XV. A BRIDEGROOM OF SNOW

XVI. THE NATURE OF AN OATH

XVII. THE HIDDEN TRAIL

XVIII.THE STAR IN THE EAST

XIX. PILGRIMS AND STRANGERS

XX. A STATION IN THE DESERT

XXI. INJURIOUS REPORTS CONCERNING AN OLD HOUSE

XXII. THE CASE STRIKES IN

XXIII.RESTIVENESS

XXIV. INDIAN SUMMER

XXV. THE FELL FROST

XXVI. PEACE TO THIS HOUSE




I


A COUNCIL OF THE ELDERS

It was an evening of sudden mildness following a dry October gale.
The colonel had miscalculated the temperature by one log--only one, he
declared, but that had proved a pitchy one, and the chimney bellowed
with flame. From end to end the room was alight with it, as if the
stored-up energies of a whole pine-tree had been sacrificed in the
consumption of that four-foot stick.

The young