MEADOW BROOK. BY MRS. MARY J. HOLMES, AUTHOR OF “THE HOMESTEAD ON THE HILL SIDE,” “’LENA RIVERS,” “TEMPEST AND SUNSHINE,” ETC. NEW YORK: C. M. SAXTON, 25 PARK ROW. 1858. ENTERED, according to Act of Congress, in the year one thousand eight hundred and fifty-seven, BY MILLER, ORTON & Co., In the Clerk’s Office of the District Court of the United States, for the Southern District of New York. W. H. TIMSON, STEREOTYPER. R. O. JENKINS, PRINTER. TO MY MOTHER, Who, more than any one else, will be interested in a story which has in it so much of my childhood and early home, THIS WORK is affectionately dedicated by her Daughter MARY. PREFACE. In this story of MEADOW BROOK there is, I am aware, nothing very startling or wonderful; but it has the merit, at least, of containing more truth than books of the same character usually possess. From this, however, the reader is not to infer that I have made myself the heroine; for though the early home, the childhood, and childish experience of “Rosa Lee” are mostly my own—while more than one whiskered young man will recognize the little girl of thirteen, at whom he once made faces from behind his desk as the “schoolma’am”—the similarity extends no further. The fickle Mr. Clayton and his haughty bride, the unfortunate Herbert, the disappointed Ada, the proud Southern planter, and the gentle, bright-haired Jessie, are intended to represent different varieties of American character, and are such as many of us have met in our intercourse with the world. For my portrayals of Georgia life, I am indebted to a friend, who recently spent two years in that State, and whose graphic descriptions of what she there saw have been to me of much service. Believing that the world loves better to read of the probable than of the improbable, I have tried to be _natural_; and if, by this means, but one friend is added to the number I now possess, I shall feel that my labor has not been in vain. M. J. H. BOCKPORT, N. Y., 1857. CONTENTS.