The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Missing Bride, by Mrs. E. D. E. N.
Southworth

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Title: The Missing Bride

Author: Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth

Release Date: December 20, 2004 [eBook #14382]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)

***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MISSING BRIDE***

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THE MISSING BRIDE

A Novel

by

MRS. E. D. E. N. SOUTHWORTH

Author of _Self-Raised_, _Ishmael_, _Retribution_, _The Bridal Eve_,
_The Bride's Fate_, _Mother-in-Law_, _The Haunted Homestead_, _The
Bride's Dowry_, _Victor's Triumph_, _A Fortune Seeker_, etc.

CHAPTER I.

LUCKENOUGH.

Deep in the primeval forest of St. Mary's, lying between the Patuxent
and the Wicomico Rivers, stands the ancient manor house of Luckenough.

The traditions of the neighborhood assert the origin of the manor and
its quaint, happy and not unmusical name to have been--briefly this:

That the founder of Luckenough was Alexander Kalouga, a Polish soldier
of fortune, some time in the service of Cecilius Calvert, Baron of
Baltimore, first Lord Proprietary of Maryland. This man had, previous to
his final emigration to the New World, passed through a life of the most
wonderful vicissitudes--wonderful even for those days of romance and
adventure. It was said that he was born in one quarter of the globe,
educated in another, initiated into warfare in the third and buried in
the fourth. In his boyhood he was the friend and pupil of Guy Fawkes; he
engaged in the Gunpowder Plot, and after witnessing the terrible fate of
his master, he escaped to Spanish America, where he led for years a sort
of buccaneer life. He afterwards returned to Europe, and then followed
years of military service wherever his hireling sword was needed. But
the soldier of fortune was ill-paid by his mistress. His misfortunes
were as proverbial as his bravery, or as his energetic complaints of
"ill luck" could make them. He had drawn his sword in almost every
quarrel of his time, on every battlefield in Europe, to find himself,
at the end of his military c