The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Beloved Woman, by Kathleen Norris

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Title: The Beloved Woman

Author: Kathleen Norris

Release Date: March 10, 2009 [EBook #28301]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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[Transcriber's Note:
Hyphenation standardized.
Archaic and variable spelling was preserved as printed.
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the editor's punctuation style was preserved.
Text in italics is enclosed by underscores (_italics_).]

THE
BELOVED WOMAN

BY KATHLEEN NORRIS

AUTHOR OF
_"Harriet and the Piper," etc._

A. L. BURT COMPANY

Publishers
New York

Published by arrangement with Doubleday, Page & Company
Printed in U. S. A.

COPYRIGHT, 1921, BY
KATHLEEN NORRIS

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED, INCLUDING THAT OF TRANSLATION
INTO FOREIGN LANGUAGES, INCLUDING THE SCANDINAVIAN

COPYRIGHT 1920, 1921, BY THE PICTORIAL REVIEW COMPANY

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES
AT
THE COUNTRY LIFE PRESS, GARDEN CITY, N. Y.

TO
MARY O'SULLIVAN SUTRO

For gifts beyond all counting and esteeming,
For kindness than which Heaven's self is not kinder,
For the old days of tears, and smiles, and dreaming,
This in acknowledgment, and in reminder.

CHAPTER I

For forty-eight hours the snow-storm had been raging unabated over New
York. After a wild and windy Thursday night the world had awakened to a
mysterious whirl of white on Friday morning, and to a dark, strange day
of steady snowing. Now, on Saturday, dirty snow was banked and heaped
in great blocks everywhere, and still the clean, new flakes fluttered
and twirled softly down, powdering and feathering every little ledge
and sill, blanketing areas in spotless white, capping and hooding every
unsightly hydrant and rubbish-can with exquisite and lavish beauty.
Shovels had clinked on