Project Gutenberg's The Case of Jennie Brice, by Mary Roberts Rinehart

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Title: The Case of Jennie Brice

Author: Mary Roberts Rinehart

Release Date: February 17, 2004 [EBook #11127]
[Date last updated: March 25, 2006]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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THE CASE _of_ JENNIE BRICE

_By_
MARY ROBERTS RINEHART

_Author of_
THE MAN IN LOWER TEN, WHEN A MAN MARRIES
WHERE THERE'S A WILL, ETC.

_Illustrated by_
M. LEONE BRACKER

1913

CHAPTER I

We have just had another flood, bad enough, but only a foot or two of
water on the first floor. Yesterday we got the mud shoveled out of the
cellar and found Peter, the spaniel that Mr. Ladley left when he "went
away". The flood, and the fact that it was Mr. Ladley's dog whose body
was found half buried in the basement fruit closet, brought back to me
the strange events of the other flood five years ago, when the water
reached more than half-way to the second story, and brought with
it, to some, mystery and sudden death, and to me the worst case of
"shingles" I have ever seen.

My name is Pitman--in this narrative. It is not really Pitman, but
that does well enough. I belong to an old Pittsburgh family. I was
born on Penn Avenue, when that was the best part of town, and I lived,
until I was fifteen, very close to what is now the Pittsburgh Club. It
was a dwelling then; I have forgotten who lived there.

I was a girl in seventy-seven, during the railroad riots, and I recall
our driving in the family carriage over to one of the Allegheny hills,
and seeing the yards burning, and a great noise of shooting from
across the river. It was the next year that I ran away from school to
marry Mr. Pitman, and I have not known my family since. We were never
reconciled, although I came back to Pittsburgh after