Transcriber's note: Italic text has been marked with _underscores_. Please see the end of this book for further notes. THE THORN IN THE NEST BY MARTHA FINLEY, Author of "THE ELSIE BOOKS," "SIGNING THE CONTRACT," "WANTED A PEDIGREE," "THE MILDRED SERIES," ETC., ETC. "He puts a thorn in our nest to drive us to the wing, that we may not be grovellers forever." NEW YORK DODD, MEAD & COMPANY PUBLISHERS COPYRIGHT, 1886, BY DODD, MEAD & COMPANY. TABLE OF CONTENTS PAGE CHAPTER I. 7 CHAPTER II. 14 CHAPTER III. 24 CHAPTER IV. 33 CHAPTER V. 44 CHAPTER VI. 54 CHAPTER VII. 63 CHAPTER VIII. 74 CHAPTER IX. 84 CHAPTER X. 91 CHAPTER XI. 102 CHAPTER XII. 114 CHAPTER XIII. 123 CHAPTER XIV. 136 CHAPTER XV. 145 CHAPTER XVI. 153 CHAPTER XVII. 162 CHAPTER XVIII. 173 CHAPTER XIX. 176 CHAPTER XX. 183 CHAPTER XXI. 193 CHAPTER XXII. 202 CHAPTER XXIII. 206 CHAPTER XXIV. 214 CHAPTER XXV. 225 CHAPTER XXVI. 235 CHAPTER XXVII. 241 CHAPTER XXVIII. 251 CHAPTER XXIX. 262 CHAPTER XXX. 272 CHAPTER XXXI. 283 CHAPTER XXXII. 288 CHAPTER XXXIII. 296 THE THORN IN THE NEST. CHAPTER I. "A malady Preys on my heart, that medicine cannot reach." Our story opens in spring of 1797, in a sequestered valley in Western Pennsylvania. On a green hillside dotted here and there with stately oaks and elms, and sloping toward the road, beyond which flowed the clear waters of a mountain stream, stood a brick farm-house--large, roomy, substantial; beautiful with climbing vines and flowering shrubs. Orchard, meadow, wheat and corn fields stretched away on either hand, shut in by dense forests and wooded hills; beyond and above which, toward the right, towered the giant Alleghenies; their summits, still white from the storms of the past winter, lying like a bank of snowy clouds against the eastern horizon. But night drew on apace, the light was fast fading even from the mountain tops, and down in the valley it was already so dark that only the outlines of objects close at hand were discernible as our hero, Kenneth Clendenin, mounted upon Romeo, his gallant steed, entered it from the west and slowly wended his way toward its one solitary dwelling. The road was familiar to both man and horse, and ere long they had reached the gate.