Produced by Geetu Melwani, Rob Reid, David Garcia and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This book was produced from scanned images of public domain material from the Google Print project.) [Illustration: Then out of the door came Jacob Dolph.] THE STORY OF A NEW YORK HOUSE BY H. C. BUNNER _ILLUSTRATED BY A. B. FROST_ NEW YORK CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 1887 COPYRIGHT, 1887, BY CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS. Press of J. J. Little & Co. Astor Place, New York. TO A. L. B. LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. _Then out of the door came Jacob Dolph_ FRONTISPIECE PAGE _"I thumped him"_ 14 _"It's a monstrous great place for a country-house, Mr. Dolph"_ 18 _There was only one idea, and that was flight_ 28 _The light flickered on the top of the church spire_ 32 (_By F. Hopkinson Smith._) _They hesitated a second, looking at the great arm chair_ 37 _"Stay there, sir--you, sir, you, Jacob Dolph!"_ 41 _After awhile he began to take timorous strolls_ 46 _Jacob Dolph the elder ... stood on his hearth rug_ 51 _And then he marched off to bed by himself, suffering no one to go with him_ 55 _In quiet morning hours ... when his daughter sat at his feet_ 77 _"Mons'us gran dinneh, seh!"_ 79 _"All of a sudden, chock forward he went, right on his face"_ 83 _He heard the weak, spasmodic wail of another Dolph_ 88 _"Central American," said the clerk_ 107 _"Looks like his father," was Mr. Daw's comment_ 109 _O'Reagan of Castle Reagan_ 118 _"If it hadn't been for the Dolphs, devil the rattle you'd have had"_ 120 _"I know'd you'd take me in, Mist' Dolph," he panted_ 132 _"Have you got a nigger here?"_ 133 _Abram Van Riper makes a business communication._ 141 _And so she set his necktie right, and he went_ 144 _Looking on his face, she saw death quietly coming upon him_ 149 _Finial_ 151 THE STORY OF A NEW YORK HOUSE. I. "I hear," said Mrs. Abram Van Riper, seated at her breakfast-table, and watching the morning sunlight dance on the front of the great Burrell house on the opposite side of Pine Street, "that the Dolphs are going to build a prodigious fine house out of town--somewhere up near the Rynders's place."