The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Preliminaries, by Cornelia A. P. Comer

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Title: The Preliminaries
And Other Stories

Author: Cornelia A. P. Comer

Release Date: September 7, 2010 [EBook #33665]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PRELIMINARIES ***

Produced by Don Kostuch

[Transcriber's notes]

Page numbers in this book are indicated by numbers enclosed in curly
braces, e.g. {99}. They have been located where page breaks occurred
in the original book.

Obvious spelling or typographical errors have been corrected.
"Inventive" and contemporary spelling is unchanged. For example, the
insertion of a space in contractions is preserved, as in "has n't".

[End transcriber's notes]

THE PRELIMINARIES

_And Other Stories_

BY

CORNELIA A. P. COMER

BOSTON AND NEW YORK

HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY

_The Riverside press Cambridge_

1912

COPYRIGHT, 1912, BY CORNELIA A. P. COMER
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

_Published September 1912_

CONTENTS

THE PRELIMINARIES 1

THE LONG INHERITANCE 51

CLARISSA'S OWN CHILD 127

{1}

THE PRELIMINARIES

{2}

{3}

THE PRELIMINARIES

I

Young Oliver Pickersgill was in love with Peter Lannithorne's
daughter. Peter Lannithorne was serving a six-year term in the
penitentiary for embezzlement.

It seemed to Ollie that there was only one right-minded way of looking
at these basal facts of his situation. But this simple view of the
matter was destined to receive several shocks in the course of his
negotiations for Ruth Lannithorne's hand. I say negotiations
advisedly. Most young men in love have only to secure the consent of
the girl and find enough money to go to housekeeping. It is quite
otherwise when you wish to marry into a royal {4} family, or to ally
yourself with a criminal's daughter. The preliminaries are more
complicated.

Ollie thought a man ought to marry the girl he loves, and prejudices
be hanged! In the deeps of his soul, he probably knew this to be the
magnanimous, manly attitude, but certainly there was no condescension
in his outward bearing when he asked Ruth Lanni