Note: Images of the original pages are available through Internet Archive. See https://archive.org/details/insteadofthornno00burn INSTEAD OF THE THORN A Novel by CLARA LOUISE BURNHAM [Illustration] Boston and New York Houghton Mifflin Company The Riverside Press Cambridge Copyright, 1916, by Clara Louise Burnham All Rights Reserved Published April 1916 TO C.T.R. WITH LOVING AND GRATEFUL MEMORIES OF JOCKEY HILL _Contents_ I. AT THE SOUTH SHORE 1 II. HOT TEA 10 III. COLD WATER 25 IV. THE JUNE NIGHT 44 V. THE CAPE 57 VI. THE SHINGLED COTTAGE 73 VII. THE DAYS THAT FOLLOWED 94 VIII. A BUSINESS INTERVIEW 109 IX. CORRESPONDENCE 122 X. THE SPELL BREAKS 134 XI. EASTWARD HO! 145 XII. EN ROUTE 160 XIII. HOME-COMING 174 XIV. BLANCHE AURORA 189 XV. THE HARBOR 201 XVI. THE VOICE OF TRUTH 218 XVII. THE RAINBOW 231 XVIII. THE PINK DRESS 247 XIX. THE WILD ROSE 261 XX. BEHIND THE BIRCHES 278 XXI. REVELATION 293 XXII. THE PENITENT 306 XXIII. A GOOD NEIGHBOR 321 XXIV. WHITCOMB'S CONFESSION 335 XXV. THE MAN AND THE MAID 350 XXVI. A DIPLOMATIST 366 XXVII. THE FULL MOON 379 INSTEAD OF THE THORN _Instead of the Thorn_ CHAPTER I AT THE SOUTH SHORE On a June evening, Mr. and Mrs. Radcliffe were entertaining their New York friends the Lindsays at dinner at the South Shore Club. The dining-room, with its spacious semicircle of glass, is a place where Chicago may entertain New York with complacence, for the windows give upon Lake Michigan, whose billows break so close to the border of velvety grass that the effect is of dining on a yacht. The Lindsays were enamored of the great marine view, lovely in the long June evening, and with many an admiring comment watched the white gulls hover and wheel above the sunset water.