Produced by Charles Aldarondo, Charles Franks and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team. THE WRITINGS OF THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH THE QUEEN OF SHEBA, AND MY COUSIN THE COLONEL BOSTON AND NEW YORK 1907 CONTENTS I. MARY II. IN WHICH THERE IS A FAMILY JAR III. IN WHICH MARY TAKES A NEW DEPARTURE IV. THE ODD ADVENTURE WHICH BEFELL YOUNG LYNDE IN THE HILL COUNTRY V. CINDERELLA'S SLIPPER VI. BEYOND THE SEA VII. THE DENHAMS VIII. FROM GENEVA TO CHAMOUNI IX. MONTANVERT X. IN THE SHADOW OF MONT BLANC XI. FROM CHAMOUNI TO GENEVA MY COUSIN THE COLONEL "FOR BRAVERY ON THE FIELD OF BATTLE" THE QUEEN OF SHEBA I MARY In the month of June, 1872, Mr. Edward Lynde, the assistant cashier and bookkeeper of the Nautilus Bank at Rivermouth, found himself in a position to execute a plan which he had long meditated in secret. A statement like this at the present time, when integrity in a place of trust has become almost an anomaly, immediately suggests a defalcation; but Mr. Lynde's plan involved nothing more criminal than a horseback excursion through the northern part of the State of New Hampshire. A leave of absence of three weeks, which had been accorded him in recognition of several years' conscientious service, offered young Lynde the opportunity he had desired. These three weeks, as already hinted, fell in the month of June, when Nature in New Hampshire is in her most ravishing toilet; she has put away her winter ermine, which sometimes serves her quite into spring; she has thrown a green mantle over her brown shoulders, and is not above the coquetry of wearing a great variety of wild flowers on her bosom. With her sassafras and her sweet-brier she is in her best mood, as a woman in a fresh and becoming costume is apt to be, and almost any one might mistake her laugh for the music of falling water, and the agreeable rustle of her garments for the wind blowing through the pine forests. As Edward Lynde rode out of Rivermouth one morning, an hour or two before anybody worth mention was moving, he was very well contented with this world, though he had his grievances, too, if he had chosen to think of them.