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 negro 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.