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AT THE GATE OF SAMARIA

By William J. Locke

London

William Heinemann

1895

TO ONE WHOSE WORK IT IS AS MUCH AS MINE

I INSCRIBE THIS BOOK.

AT THE GATE OF SAMARIA.




CHAPTER I.

It was a severe room, scrupulously neat. Along one side ran a bookcase,
with beaded glass doors, containing, as one might see by peering through
the spaces, the collected, unread literature of two stern generations.
A few old prints, placed in bad lights, hung on the walls. In the centre
of the room was a leather-covered library table, with writing materials
arranged in painful precision. A couch was lined along one wall, in the
draught of the door. On either side of the fireplace were ranged two
stiff leather armchairs.

In