The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Early Short Fiction of Edith Wharton,
Part 2 (of 10), by Edith Wharton

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Title: The Early Short Fiction of Edith Wharton, Part 2 (of 10)

Author: Edith Wharton

Posting Date: July 12, 2008 [EBook #306]
Release Date: August, 1995

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK EARLY SHORT FICTION ***

Produced by John Hamm

THE EARLY SHORT FICTION OF EDITH WHARTON

A Ten-Part Collection

Volume Two

Contents of Part Two

Stories
AFTERWARD............................January 1910
THE FULNESS OF LIFE..................December 1893
A VENETIAN NIGHT'S ENTERTAINMENT.....December 1903
XINGU................................December 1911
THE VERDICT..........................June 1908
THE RECKONING........................August 1902

Verse

BOTTICELLI'S MADONNA IN THE LOUVRE...January 1891
THE TOMB OF ILARIA GIUNIGI...........February 1891
THE SONNET...........................November 1891
TWO BACKGROUNDS......................November 1892
EXPERIENCE...........................January 1893
CHARTRES.............................September 1893
LIFE.................................June 1894
AN AUTUMN SUNSET.....................October 1894

AFTERWARD

January 1910

I

"Oh, there IS one, of course, but you'll never know it."

The assertion, laughingly flung out six months earlier in a bright June
garden, came back to Mary Boyne with a sharp perception of its latent
significance as she stood, in the December dusk, waiting for the lamps
to be brought into the library.

The words had been spoken by their friend Alida Stair, as they sat at
tea on her lawn at Pangbourne, in reference to the very house of which
the library in question was the central, the pivotal "feature." Mary
Boyne and her husband, in quest of a country place in one of the
southern or southwestern counties, had, on their arrival in England,
c