Produced by David Garcia, Carla Foust, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Kentuckiana Digital Library) Transcriber's note Minor punctuation errors have been changed without notice. Printer errors have been changed and are listed at the end. All other inconsistencies are as in the original. THE LOVE STORY OF ABNER STONE THE LOVE STORY OF ABNER STONE _By_ EDWIN CARLILE LITSEY NEW YORK A. S. BARNES AND COMPANY MCMII _Copyright, 1902_ BY A. S. BARNES AND COMPANY _Published June, 1902_ ALL RIGHTS RESERVED REPRINTED JULY, 1902 UNIVERSITY PRESS · JOHN WILSON AND SON · CAMBRIDGE, U. S. A. TO HER Preface It seems a little strange that I, Abner Stone, now verging upon my seventieth year, should bring pen, ink, and paper before me, with the avowed purpose of setting down the love story of my life, which I had thought locked fast in my heart forever. A thing very sacred to me; of the world, it is true, yet still apart from it, the blessed memory of it all has abode in my breast with the unfading distinctness of an old picture done in oils, and has brightened the years I have thus far lived on the shadowed slope of life. And now has come the firm belief that the world may be made better by the telling of this story--as my life has been made better by having lived it--and so I shall essay the brief and simple task before my fingers have grown too stiff to hold the pen, trusting that some printer of books will be good enough to put my story into a little volume for all who would care to read. And I, as I pursue the work which I have appointed unto myself, shall again stroll through the meadows and forests of dear Kentucky, shall tread her dusty highways under the spell of a bygone June, and shall sit within the portals of an old home whose floors are now pressed by an alien foot. Now, ere I have scarce begun, the recollections come upon me like a flood, and this page becomes blurred to my failing sight. O Memory! Memory! and the visions of thine! THE LOVE STORY _of_ ABNER STONE I