



Produced by Roger Frank, Mary Meehan, and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net.

                                  OR,
                            LOVE AND PRIDE.

                           By MARY J. HOLMES

                                  1878

                                  ----




CONTENTS


    CHAPTER I.--THE INMATES OF THE FARM-HOUSE.
    CHAPTER II.--MR. GRAHAM AND JESSIE.
    CHAPTER III.--EIGHT YEARS LATER.
    CHAPTER IV.--JESSIE AND ELLEN.
    CHAPTER V.--WALTER AND JESSIE.
    CHAPTER VI.--OLD MRS. BARTOW.
    CHAPTER VII.--HUMAN NATURE.
    CHAPTER VIII.--A RETROSPECT.
    CHAPTER IX.--NELLIE.
    CHAPTER X.--A DISCLOSURE.
    CHAPTER XI.--THE NIGHT AFTER THE BURIAL.
    CHAPTER XII.--A CRISIS.
    CHAPTER XIII.--EXPLANATIONS.
    CHAPTER XIV.--THE STRANGER NURSE.
    CHAPTER XV.--GLORIOUS NEWS.
    CHAPTER XVI.--THANKSGIVING DAY AT DEERWOOD.
    CHAPTER XVII.--CONCLUSION.

                                  ----




CHAPTER I.--THE INMATES OF THE FARM-HOUSE.


Old Deacon Marshall sat smoking beneath the maple tree which he had
planted many years before, when he was scarcely older than the little
girl sitting on the broad doorstep and watching the sun as it went down
behind the western hills. The tree was a sapling then, and himself a
mere boy. The sapling now was a mighty tree, and its huge branches swept
the gable roof of the time-worn building, while the boy was a
gray-haired man, sitting there in the glorious sunset of that bright
October day, and thinking of all which had come to him since the morning
long ago, when, from the woods near by, he brought the little twig, and
with his mother's help secured it in its place, watching anxiously for
the first indications of its future growth.

Across the fields