E-text prepared by Katherine Ward, Mary Meehan, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net) from page images generously made available by Internet Archive/American Libraries (http://www.archive.org/details/americana)
A RECONSTRUCTED MARRIAGE
BY AMELIA E. BARR
FRONTISPIECE BY Z. P. NIKOLAKI
NEW YORK DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY 1910
Copyright, 1910, by DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY
Published, October, 1910
THE QUINN & BODEN CO. PRESS RAHWAY, N.J.
TO MY DEAR FRIEND MRS. HARRY LEE THIS BOOK IS AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I A Prospective Mother-in-Law CHAPTER II Preparing for the Bride CHAPTER III The Bride's Homecoming CHAPTER IV Foes in the Household CHAPTER V Bad at Best CHAPTER VI The Naming of the Child CHAPTER VII The New Christina CHAPTER VIII A Runaway Bride CHAPTER IX The Last Straw CHAPTER X Theodora Makes a New Life CHAPTER XI Christina and Isabel CHAPTER XII Robert Campbell Goes Wooing CHAPTER XIII The Reconstructed Marriage
OTHER BOOKS BY MRS. BARR
A RECONSTRUCTED MARRIAGE
CHAPTER I
A PROSPECTIVE MOTHER-IN-LAW
As it was Saturday morning, Mrs. Traquair Campbell was examining her weekly accounts and clearing off her week's correspondence; for she found it necessary to her enjoyment of the Sabbath Day that her mind should be free from all worldly obligations. This was one of the inviolable laws of Traquair House, enunciated so frequently and so positively by its mistress, that it was seldom violated in any way.
It was therefore with fear and uncertainty that Miss Campbell ventured to break this rule, and to open softly the door of her mother's room. No notice was taken of the intruder for a few moments, but her presence proving disastrous to the total of a line of figures which Mrs. Campbell was adding, she looked up with visible annoyance and asked:
"What do you want, Isabel? You are disturbing me very much, and you know it."
"I beg pardon, mother, but I think the occasion will excuse me."
"What is the occasion?"
"There is something in my brother's room that I feel sure you ought to see."
"Could you not have waited until I had finished my work here?"
"No, mother. It is Saturday, and Robert may be home by an early train. I think he will, for he is apparently going to England."
"Going to England, so near the Sabbath? Impossible! What set your thoughts on that track?"
"His valise is packed, and directed to Sheffield; but I think he will stop at a town called Kendal. He may go to Sheffield afterwards, of course."
"Kendal! Where is Kendal? I never heard of the place. What do you know about it?"
"Nothing at all. But in going over the mail, I noticed that four letters with the Kendal post-office stamp came to Robert this week. They were all addressed in the same handwriting—a woman's."
"Isabel Campbell!"
"It is the truth, mother."
"Why did you not name this singular circumstance before?"
