Produced by Judith Boss THE EARLY SHORT FICTION OF EDITH WHARTON By Edith Wharton A Ten-Volume Collection Volume One Contents of Volume One Stories KERFOL.........................March 1916 MRS. MANSTEY’S VIEW............July 1891 THE BOLTED DOOR................March 1909 THE DILETTANTE.................December 1903 THE HOUSE OF THE DEAD HAND.....August 1904 The following works not included in the present eBook: Verse THE PARTING DAY................February 1880 AEROPAGUS......................March 1880 A FAILURE......................April 1880 PATIENCE.......................April 1880 WANTS..........................May 1880 THE LAST GIUSTIANINI...........October 1889 EURYALUS.......................December 1889 HAPPINESS......................December 1889 Bibliography EDITH WHARTON BIBLIOGRAPHY: SHORT STORIES AND POEMS........Judy Boss KERFOL As first published in Scribner’s Magazine, March 1916 I “You ought to buy it,” said my host; “it’s just the place for a solitary-minded devil like you. And it would be rather worth while to own the most romantic house in Brittany. The present people are dead broke, and it’s going for a song--you ought to buy it.” It was not with the least idea of living up to the character my friend Lanrivain ascribed to me (as a matter of fact, under my unsociable exterior I have always had secret yearnings for domesticity) that I took his hint one autumn afternoon and went to Kerfol. My friend was motoring over to Quimper on business: he dropped me on the way, at a cross-road on a heath, and said: “First turn to the right and second to the left. Then straight ahead till you see an avenue. If you meet any peasants, don’t ask your way. They don’t understand French, and they would pretend they did and mix you up. I’ll be back for you here by sunset--and don’t forget the tombs in the chapel.”