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HAGAR




  HAGAR

  BY
  MARY JOHNSTON

  [Illustration]

  BOSTON AND NEW YORK
  HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY
  The Riverside Press Cambridge
  1913




COPYRIGHT, 1913, BY MARY JOHNSTON
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
_Published October 1913_




CONTENTS


       I. THE PACKET-BOAT            1
      II. GILEAD BALM                8
     III. THE DESCENT OF MAN        19
      IV. THE CONVICT               30
       V. MARIA                     45
      VI. EGLANTINE                 57
     VII. MR. LAYDON                70
    VIII. HAGAR AND LAYDON          82
      IX. ROMEO AND JULIET          92
       X. GILEAD BALM              104
      XI. THE LETTERS              116
     XII. A MEETING                132
    XIII. THE NEW SPRINGS          143
     XIV. NEW YORK                 154
      XV. LOOKING FOR THOMASINE    170
     XVI. THE MAINES               184
    XVII. THE SOCIALIST MEETING    194
   XVIII. A TELEGRAM               208
     XIX. ALEXANDRIA               221
      XX. MEDWAY                   231
     XXI. AT ROGER MICHAEL'S       244
    XXII. HAGAR IN LONDON          257
   XXIII. BY THE SEA               266
    XXIV. DENNY GAYDE              275
     XXV. HAGAR AND DENNY          284
    XXVI. GILEAD BALM              300
   XXVII. A DIFFERENCE OF OPINION  313
  XXVIII. NEW YORK AGAIN           323
    XXIX. ROSE DARRAGH             332
     XXX. AN OLD ACQUAINTANCE      341
    XXXI. JOHN FAY                 351
   XXXII. RALPH                    360
  XXXIII. GILEAD BALM              372
   XXXIV. BRITTANY                 382




HAGAR




HAGAR




CHAPTER I

THE PACKET-BOAT


"_Low Braidge!_"

The people on deck bent over, some until heads touched knees, others,
more exactly calculating, just sufficiently to clear the beams. The
canal-boat passed beneath the bridge, and all straightened themselves
on their camp-stools. The gentlemen who were smoking put their cigars
again between their lips. The two or three ladies resumed book or
knitting. The sun was low, and the sycamores and willows fringing the
banks cast long shadows across the canal. The northern bank was not so
clothed with foliage, and one saw an expanse of bottom land, meadows
and cornfields, and beyond, low mountains, purple in the evening light.
The boat slipped from a stripe of gold into a stripe of shadow, and
from a stripe of shadow into a stripe of gold. The <DW64> and the mule
on the towpath were now but a bit of dusk in motion, and now were lit
and, so to speak, powdered with gold-dust. Now the rope between boat
and towpath showed an arm-thick golden serpent, and now it did not show
at all. Now a little cloud of gnats and flies, accompanying the boat,
shone in burnished armour and now they put on a mantle of shade.

A dark little girl, of twelve years, dark and thin, sitting aft on the
deck floor, her long, white-stockinged legs folded decorously under
her, her blue gingham skirt spread out, and her Leghorn hat upon her
knees, appealed to one of the reading ladies. "Aunt Serena, what is
'evolution'?"

Miss Serena Ashendyne laid down her book. "'Evolution,'" she said
blankly, "'what is evolution?'"

"I heard grandfather say it just now. He said, 'That man Darwin and his
evolution'--"

"Oh!" said Miss Serena. "He meant a very wicked and irreligious
Englishman who wrote a dreadful book."

"Was it named 'Evolution'?"

"No. I forget just what it is called. 'Beginning'--No! 'Origin of
Species.' That was it."

"Have we got it in the library at Gilead Balm?"

"Heavens! No!"

"Why?"

"Your grandfather wouldn't let it come into the house. No lady would
read it."

"Oh!"

Miss Serena returned to her novel. She sat very elegantly on the
camp-stool, a graceful, long-lined, drooping form in a greenish-grey
delaine picked out with tiny daisies. It was made polonaise. Miss
Serena, alone of the people at Gilead Balm, kept up with the fashions.

At the other end of the long, narrow deck a knot of country gentlemen
were telling war stories. All had fought in the war--the war that had
been over now for twenty years and more. There were an empty sleeve and
a wooden leg in the group and other marks of bullet and sabre. They
told good stories, the country gentlemen, and they indulged in mellow
laughter. Blue rings of tobacco-smoke rose and mingled and made a haze
about that end of the boat.

"How the gentlemen are enjoying themselves!" said placidly one of the
knitting ladies.

The dark little girl continued to ponder the omission from the library.
"Aunt Serena--"

"Yes, Hagar."

"Is it like 'Tom Jones'?"

"'Tom Jones'! What do you know about 'Tom Jones'?"

"Grandfather was reading it one day and laughing, and after he had done
with it I