The Project Gutenberg EBook of Agatha's Husband, by
Dinah Maria Craik (AKA: Dinah Maria Mulock)

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Title: Agatha's Husband
A Novel

Author: Dinah Maria Craik (AKA: Dinah Maria Mulock)

Posting Date: March 13, 2009 [EBook #21767]
Release Date: June 8, 2007

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AGATHA'S HUSBAND ***

David Widger

AGATHA'S HUSBAND

A NOVEL

By The Author Of

'John Halifax, Gentleman'

DINAH MARIA CRAIK,
AKA: Dinah Maria Mulock

With Illustrations By Walter Crane

Macmillan And Co.

1875

INSCRIBED TO M, P.,

IN

MEMORIAL OF THE FRIENDSHIP OF A LIFETIME

1852.

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.

The husband's farewell

"She began leisurely to read"

"Will you accept it, with my love?"

Arrival at Kingcombe Holm

On horseback

Along the road

AGATHA'S HUSBAND.

CHAPTER I.

--If there ever was a woman thoroughly like her name, it was Agatha
Bowen. She was good, in the first place--right good at heart, though
with a slight external roughness (like the sound of the g in her name),
which took away all sentimentalism. Then the vowels--the three broad
rich a's--which no one can pronounce with nimini-pimini closed lips--how
thoroughly they answered to her character!--a character in the which was
nothing small, mean, cramped, or crooked.

But if we go on unfolding her in this way, there will not be the
slightest use in writing her history, or that of one in whom her life is
beautifully involved and enclosed--as every married woman's should be--

He was still in clouded mystery--an individual yet to be; and two other
individuals had been "talking him over," feminine-fashion, in Miss
Agatha Bowen's drawing-room, much to that lady's amusement and
edification. For, being moderately rich, she had her own suite of rooms
in the house where she boarded; and having no mother--sorrowful lot for
a girl of nineteen!--she sometimes filled her drawing-room with very
useless and unprofitable acquaintances. These two married ladies--one
young, the other old--Mrs. Hill and Mrs. Thornycroft--had been for the
last half-hour vexing their very hearts out to fin