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[Illustration: Grant Allen.]




                         L   I   N   N   E   T

                  _=A     R   O   M   A   N   C   E=_

                     _ B y _ G R A N T   A L L E N

                   _Author of_ “UNDER SEALED ORDERS,”
                    “MISS CAYLEY’S ADVENTURES,” ETC.




           _N e w   Y o r k_ : : : N E W   A M S T E R D A M
           B O O K   C O M P A N Y   :   :   :   :    _M C M_




                            COPYRIGHT, 1900
                                   BY
                       NEW AMSTERDAM BOOK COMPANY

                                  NOTE

        This story was written in the midst of the scenery which
        it describes; but the author desires to acknowledge his
        obligations for many touches of local colour to Mr.
        Baillie-Grohman’s admirable work on “Tyrol and the
        Tyrolese.” The quatrain on p. 283 is quoted, with
        some slight modifications (to adapt it to its place
        in this novel), from a poem by Mr. William Watson.




                                CONTENTS

                   I. “TO INTRODUCE MR FLORIAN WOOD”
                   II. A FRESH ACQUAINTANCE
                   III. WITHIN SIGHT OF A HEROINE
                   IV. ENTER LINNET
                   V. THE WIRTH’S THEORY
                   VI. THE ROBBLER
                   VII. WAGER OF BATTLE
                   VIII. THE HUMAN HEART
                   IX. THE MAN OF THE WORLD
                   X. HAIL, COLUMBIA!
                   XI. PRIVATE INQUIRY
                   XII. THE MADDING CROWD
                   XIII. A FIRST NIGHT
                   XIV. AND IF FOR EVER
                   XV. A CRITICAL EVENING
                   XVI. SCHLOSS TYROL
                   XVII. CAUGHT OUT
                   XVIII. TAKEN BY SURPRISE
                   XIX. SPIRITUAL WEAPONS
                   XX. FLORIAN ON MATRIMONY
                   XXI. FORTUNE’S WHEEL
                   XXII. A WOMAN’S STRATAGEM
                   XXIII. A PROPHET INDEED!
                   XXIV. THE ART OF PROPHESYING
                   XXV. A DRAMATIC VENTURE
                   XXVI. A WOMAN’S HEART
                   XXVII. AULD LAND SYNE
                   XXVIII. SIGNORA CASALMONTE
                   XXIX. FROM LINNET’S STANDPOINT
                   XXX. AN UNEXPECTED VISITOR
                   XXXI. WHEN GREEK MEETS GREEK
                   XXXII. WEDDED FELICITY
                   XXXIII. PLAYING WITH FIRE
                   XXXIV. AN OLD ACQUAINTANCE
                   XXXV. GOLDEN HOPES
                   XXXVI. AN ECCLESIASTICAL QUESTION
                   XXXVII. BEGINNINGS OF EVIL
                   XXXVIII. HUSBAND OR LOVER?
                   XXXIX. DOCUMENTARY EVIDENCE
                   XL. OPEN WAR
                   XLI. GOD’S LAW—OR MAN’S?
                   XLII. PRUDENCE
                   XLIII. LINNET’S RIVAL
                   XLIV. AND WILL’S
                   XLV. BY AUTHORITY
                   XLVI. HOME AGAIN!
                   XLVII. SEEMINGLY UNCONNECTED
                   XLVIII. THE BUBBLE BURSTS
                   XLIX. THE PIGEON FLIES HOME
                   L. ANDREAS HAUSBERGER PAYS
                   LI. EXIT FRANZ LINDNER
                   LII. A CONFESSION OF FAITH




                              L I N N E T




                               CHAPTER I


                     “TO INTRODUCE MR FLORIAN WOOD”

’Twas at Zell in the Zillerthal.

Now, whoever knows the Alps, knows the Zillerthal well as the centre of
all that is most Tyrolese in the Tyrol. From that beautiful green
valley, softly smiling below, majestically grand and ice-clad in its
upper forks and branches, issue forth from time to time all the
itinerant zither-players and picturesquely-clad singers who pervade
every capital and every spa in Europe. Born and bred among the rich
lawns of their upland villages, they come down in due time, with a
feather in their hats and a jodel in their throats, true modern
troubadours, setting out on the untried ocean of the outer world—their
voice for their fortune—in search of wealth and adventures. Guitar on
back and green braces on shoulders, they start blithely from home with a
few copper kreuzers in their leather belts, and return again after a
year or two, changed men to behold, their pockets full to bursting with
dollars or louis or good English sovereigns.

Not that you must expect to see the Tyrolese peasant of sober reality
masquerading about in that extremely operatic and brigand-like costume
in the upper Zillerthal. The Alpine minstrel in the sugar-loaf hat,
much-gartered as to the legs, and clad in a Joseph’s coat of many
colours, with whom we are all so familiar in cosmopolitan concert-halls,
has donned his romantic polychromatic costume as an integral part of the
business, and would be regarded with surprise, not unmixed with
contempt, were he to appear in it among the pastures of his native
valley. The ladies in corset-bodices and loose white lawn sleeves, who
trill out startling notes from the back attics of their larynx, or
elicit sweet harmonies from mediæval-looking mandolines in Kursaals and
Alcaz