Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Charles Franks and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team. LOVEY MARY BY ALICE HEGAN RICE AUTHOR OF "Mrs. Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch" 1903 TO CALE YOUNG RICE WHO TAUGHT ME THE SECRET OF PLUCKING ROSES FROM A CABBAGE PATCH CONTENTS CHAPTER I A CACTUS-PLANT II A RUNAWAY COUPLE III THE HAZY HOUSEHOLD IV AN ACCIDENT AND AN INCIDENT V THE DAWN OF A ROMANCE VI THE LOSING OF MR. STUBBINS VII NEIGHBORLY ADVICE VIII A DENOMINATIONAL GARDEN IX LABOR DAY X A TIMELY VISIT XI THE CHRISTMAS PLAY XII REACTION XIII AN HONORABLE RETREAT XIV THE CACTUS BLOOMS LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS "They met at the pump." ..... Frontispiece "'Now the Lord meant you to be plain.'" "'Come here, Tom, and kiss your mother.'" "''T ain't no street...; this here is the Cabbage Patch.'" "She puffed her hair at the top and sides." "'She took on mighty few airs fer a person in mournin'.'" "She sat on the door-step, white and miserable." 67 "Mrs. Wiggs took pictures from her walls and chairs from her parlor to beautify the house of Hazy." "Mr. Stubbins, sitting in Mrs. Wiggs's most comfortable chair, with a large slice of pumpkin-pie in his hand." "'Stick out yer tongue.'" "Asia held out her hands, which were covered with warm red mitts." "Master Robert Redding was right side up again, sobbing himself quiet in Lovey Mary's arms." "'Have you ever acted any?' he asked." "Europena stepped forward." "Sang in a high, sweet voice, 'I Need Thee Every Hour.'" "'Haven't you got any place you could go to?'" Susie Smithers at the keyhole "Lovey Mary waved until she rounded a curve." LOVEY MARY CHAPTER I A CACTUS-PLANT For life, with all it yields of joy and woe, And hope and fear,... Is just our chance o' the prize of learning love,-- How love might be, hath been indeed, and is. BROWNING'S "A Death in the Desert." Everything about Lovey Mary was a contradiction, from her hands and feet, which seemed to have been meant for a big girl, to her high ideals and aspirations, that ought to have belonged to an amiable one. The only ingredient which might have reconciled all the conflicting elements in her chaotic little bosom was one which no one had ever taken the trouble to supply. When Miss Bell, the matron of the home, came to receive Lovey Mary's confession of repentance, she found her at an up-stairs window making hideous faces and kicking the furniture. The depth of her repentance could always be gaged by the violence of her conduct. Miss Bell looked at her as she would have looked at one of the hieroglyphs on the Obelisk. She had been trying to decipher her for thirteen years.