The Project Gutenberg EBook of Fairfax and His Pride, by Marie Van Vorst

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Title: Fairfax and His Pride

Author: Marie Van Vorst

Release Date: June 15, 2010 [EBook #32826]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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FAIRFAX AND HIS PRIDE

_A NOVEL_

BY

MARIE VAN VORST

Author of "Big Tremaine," etc.

BOSTON
SMALL, MAYNARD & COMPANY
PUBLISHERS

Copyright, 1920,
BY SMALL, MAYNARD& COMPANY
(INCORPORATED)

TO

B. VAN VORST

IN MEMORY OF A LONG FRIENDSHIP

FAIRFAX AND HIS PRIDE

BOOK I

THE KINSMEN

CHAPTER I

One bitter day in January in the year 1880, when New York was a tranquil
city, a young man stood at the South Ferry waiting for the up-town horse
car. With a few other passengers he had just left the packet which had
arrived in New York harbour that afternoon from New Orleans.

Antony Fairfax was an utter stranger to the North.

In his hand he carried a small hand-bag, and by his side on the snow
rested his single valise. Before him waited a red and yellow tram-car
drawn by lean horses, from whose backs the vapour rose on the frosty
air. Muffled to his ears, the driver beat together his hands in their
leather gloves; the conductor stamped his feet. The traveller climbed
into the car, lifting his big bag after him.

The cold was even more terrible to him than to the conductor and driver.
He had come from the South, where he had left the roses and magnolias in
bloom, and the warmth of the country was in his blood. He dug his feet
into the straw covering the floor of the car, buttoned his coat tight
about his neck, pushed his hands deep in his pockets and sat wondering
at th