



Produced by Nick Hodson of London, England




Eunice
By Margaret Murray Robertson
Published by Hodder and Stoughton, 27 Paternoster Row, London.
This edition dated 1890.

Eunice, by Margaret Murray Robertson.

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EUNICE, BY MARGARET MURRAY ROBERTSON.

CHAPTER ONE.

GOING HOME.

One fair morning, a good many years ago, a number of schoolgirls were
waiting at a little wayside station on the banks of the Connecticut
River.  They had crossed the river in a ferry-boat and were waiting for
more of their number who were coming after them.

They were waiting patiently enough.  It was a good place in which to
wait, for the scene around them was very lovely.  They were standing at
the foot of Mount Tom, glorious in the morning sunshine, and looking
over on the shadows which still lingered on the face of Mount Holyoke.

From the far north flows the Connecticut River broadening on its way, as
Green Mountain and White send down on either hand, from melting
snow-drifts and hidden springs, their tribute to its waters.  Through
forests and broken hill country, through meadows, sometimes broad and
sometimes narrow, past town and village and lonely farmhouse, it flows
before it makes a bend to pass between Mounts Tom and Holyoke, but in
all its course it flows through no fairer landscape than that which
spreads itself around the base of these two historic mountains.

Over all the land lay the promise of spring in the glory of cloudless
sunshine.  Only the promise as yet.  The mountains were still bare and
brown, with patches of snow lingering in hollow and crevice; and the
great elms that were everywhere--in the village streets, along the roads
that wound between the hills, and around the white farmhouses--showed no
tinge of green as yet, but their brown buds were ready and waiting to
burst; the meadows were growing green and the catkins were large and
full on the willows by the brooks that hastened through them to the
river.  There was a soft tinge, half green, half golden, on earlier
trees growing in sheltered places; and the promise of the spring was
everywhere--more joyfully welcomed after a long winter than spring in
the full glory of leaf and blossom.

They were thinking and speaking of other things--these waiting
schoolgirls.  Some of them walked about, softly speaking last words to
each other, and some of them were watching the coming of the boat over
the swollen waters of the river.  But the beauty around them, the
sweetness of the spring morning, the restful quiet on mountain and
valley, were present with them all.

"Nellie Austin," said a voice from the group that watched the boat, "do
you see?  Your `Faithful' is coming after all."

"My Faithful!"--and a young girl sprang forward as the boat touched the
bank.

A slender girl, very plainly dressed, stepped out first--a girl with
grave dark eyes and a firm mouth, which yet trembled a little as she
answered her companion's greeting.

"Faithful! my Faithful! you are coming home with me after all?"

"No, dear; I am going home to my Eunice.  I thought I had better."

"Have you heard again?  Is