29-33 Richmond Street West.
Montreal: C.W. COATES. Halifax: S.F. HUESTIS.
1897.
Entered according to Act of the Parliament of Canada, in theyear one thousand eight hundred and ninety-seven, by WilliamBriggs, at the Department of Agriculture.
To my mother
THIS MY FIRST BOOK
IS LOVINGLY
DEDICATED.
BETH AT EIGHTEEN.
In the good old county of Norfolk, close to the shore of Lake Erie, liesthe pretty village of Briarsfield. A village I call it, though in truthit has now advanced almost to the size and dignity of a town. Here, onthe brow of the hill to the north of the village (rather a retired spot,one would say, for so busy a man), at the time of which my story treats,stood the residence of Dr. Woodburn.
It was a long, old-fashioned rough-cast house facing the east, withgreat wide windows on each side of the door and a veranda all the wayacross the front. The big lawn was quite uneven, and broken here andthere by birch trees, spruces, and crazy clumps of rose-bushes, all inbloom. Altogether it was a sweet, home-like old place. The view to thesouth showed, over the village roofs on the hill-side, the blue of LakeErie outlined against the sky, while to the north stretched the open,undulating country, so often seen in Western Ontario.
One warm June afternoon Beth, the doctor's only daughter, was loungingin an attitude more careless than graceful under a birch tree. She, herfather and Mrs. Margin, the housekeeper—familiarly known as AuntPrudence—formed the whole household. Beth was a little above theaverage height, a girlish figure, with a trifle of that awkwardness onesometimes meets in an immature girl of eighteen; a face, not what mostpeople would call pretty, but still having a fair share of beauty. Herfeatures were, perhaps, a little too strongly outlined, but the brow wasfair as a lily, and from it the great mass of dark hair was drawn backin a pleasing way