The Project Gutenberg EBook of Wee Wifie, by Rosa Nouchette Carey

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Title: Wee Wifie

Author: Rosa Nouchette Carey

Release Date: May 8, 2009 [EBook #28717]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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[Illustration]

WEE WIFIE.

A NOVEL.

BY ROSA NOUCHETTE CAREY,

_Author of "Not Like Other Girls," "Uncle Max," Etc._

NEW YORK:
THE FEDERAL BOOK COMPANY,
PUBLISHERS.

PREFACE.

The demand for Wee Wifie has led to a reissue in a cheaper form, but
as so many years have elapsed since the story first made its
appearance, the author considered that extensive alterations would be
necessary before its republication.

It has therefore been carefully revised, and, though the characters
and the salient points of the plot have been left untouched, several
fresh chapters have been added to assist in the more thorough
development of the story.

THE AUTHOR.

WEE WIFIE.

CHAPTER I.

PROLOGUE--THE WANDERER.

Tears, idle tears, I know not what they mean,
Tears from the depth of some divine despair
Rise in the heart, and gather to the eyes,
In looking on the happy Autumn fields,
And thinking of the days that are no more.

TENNYSON'S _Princess_.

Not much of a picture, certainly!

Only a stretch of wide sunny road, with a tamarisk hedge and a clump
of shadowy elms; a stray sheep nibbling in a grass ditch; and a brown
baby asleep on a bench; beyond, low broad fields of grain whitening to
harvest, and a distant film and haze--blue cloudiness, and the deep
monotonous sound of the great sea.

Yellow sunshine, green turf, the buoyancy of salt spray in the air;
some one, trailing a white gown unheeded in the sandy dust, pauses a
moment under the flickering elms to admire the scene.

She is a tall, grave woman, with serious eyes and dead-brown hair, the
shade of withered leaves in autumn, with a sad beautiful face.

It is the face of one