[Frontispiece: "If Miss Bee is willing I can drive her to the Towers."] BEATRICE OF OLD YORK BY E. A. TAYLOR _Illustrated by_ L. A. GOVEY TORONTO THE MUSSON BOOK COMPANY, LIMITED COPYRIGHT, CANADA, 1929 THE MUSSON BOOK COMPANY, LTD. PUBLISHERS TORONTO PRINTED IN CANADA T. H. BEST PRINTING CO., LIMITED TORONTO, ONT. CONTENTS CHAPTER I. How Bee Goode of Boston, came to England II. The Man who Preached in Noah's Ark and Some of His Hearers III. A Voyage to Canada in 1812 IV. How Ned came to York (Toronto) V. How the Americans came to York, April 27, 1813 VI. How Ned Lost His Good Name and Vere His Soul VII. How Ned Planned to Justify Bee's Faith in Him VIII. How Ned Had Many Adventures, and Bee becomes a Woman IX. How Ned Won the "Bubble Reputation", at the Cannon's Mouth X. How Vere came to Newark, and Bee consented to be Betrothed to Him XI. Kawque takes a Hand in the Game XII. How Bee was Abducted--and the End LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS "If Miss Bee is willing I can drive her to the Towers." ... _Frontispiece_ "Miss Bee," exclaimed Ned, "are you hurt? What is the matter?" "Dropped noiselessly overboard and swam ashore." "Outside in the bitter cold a crowd of women and children moved about aimlessly." "Take that! you coward!" "Then on the other side of the tree they saw her--or her spirit." BEATRICE OF OLD YORK Beatrice of Old York CHAPTER I. How Bee Goode, of Boston, Came to England. The stage coach from Plymouth to London had left two passengers at Liddon, a little manufacturing town in a dimple of the great chalk downs of Dorsetshire. Dobson, the coachman with the big carriage from Haslem Towers looked at them perplexed. His orders from his master, Colonel Sir John Haslem, were to meet the stage. Vere Haslem, Sir John's fifteen-year-old grandson and heir, had gone to Plymouth to meet his cousin, Beatrice Haslem, from York, in the mysterious far-off Canadas. But Vere was not to be seen, and there only alighted from the coach an enormous negress with a scarlet and orange turban and a small white girl whom Dobson did not notice for a minute. He was wondering in horror if this awful-looking savage could possibly be his master's granddaughter. He knew that Mary Haslem had made a runaway marriage with an unknown American twenty years before, and that her father had sworn never to forgive her. But she and her husband were dead, and he had consented that the Canadian guardians of her youngest child, Beatrice, should send her to him, and call her by her mother's name of Haslem. Dobson had a vague idea that all Americans were Red Indians, and thinking that this black woman might be a variation of the race, he touched his cap in some trepidation, saying questioningly: "Miss Beatrice Haslem?"