E-text prepared by Roger Frank and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net) from page images generously made available by Internet Archive (https://archive.org) Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this file which includes the original illustrations. See 57301-h.htm or 57301-h.zip: (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/57301/57301-h/57301-h.htm) or (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/57301/57301-h.zip) Images of the original pages are available through Internet Archive. See https://archive.org/details/luckofdudleygrah00hain Transcriber’s note: In this book, words and phrases originally in italics are enclosed by underscores _like this_. [Illustration: Elizabeth] THE LUCK OF THE DUDLEY GRAHAMS As Related in Extracts from Elizabeth Graham’S Diary by ALICE CALHOUN HAINES Illustrations by Francis Day New York Henry Holt and Company 1907 Copyright, 1907, by Henry Holt and Company Published October, 1907 The Quinn & Boden Co. Press Rahway, N. J. To My Mother Thy heart will read what others do not see; Therefore, dear heart, this book is most for thee. THE LUCK OF THE DUDLEY GRAHAMS New York, Wednesday, November 26. We are the Dudley Grahams,—four children and a mother. We are very poor and keep a boarding-house; not because we like boarders, but because when dear father died a three thousand dollar life assurance and this house were our only “available assets,” as Uncle George, who was executor, explained: “and so you must take boarders.” We do; but it isn’t always pleasant. The three thousand dollars did not last long, either; for there were a great many debts to be met that nobody had known anything about, and we had to have the library repapered and a new carpet in the hall, to impress the people who came to look for rooms. “We must be very polite and charming, too,” said Ernie, “and talk as hard as we can all the time, and then perhaps they won’t notice how shabby the rest of the things are.” But I fancy they did; because it was over two months before we could get anybody to stop with us, and the money in the bank grew less and less, while Uncle George grew more grim and disapproving, and said that dear father had been “criminally careless,” and that no man should be permitted to have a family, if he did not know enough to provide for it. But, at last, Miss Brown came; and then Mrs. Hudson and the Hancocks, and now we are really beginning to get along.