The Project Gutenberg eBook, Hearts and Masks, by Harold MacGrath

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Title: Hearts and Masks

Author: Harold MacGrath

Release Date: December 25, 2005 [eBook #17390]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)

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HEARTS AND MASKS

by

HAROLD MACGRATH

Author of The Puppet Crown, The Grey Cloak, The Man on the Box

With Illustrations by Harrison Fisher

[Frontispiece: Five people dressed for costume ball, four sitting, one
standing.]

New York
Grosset & Dunlap
Publishers
Copyright 1905
The Bobbs-Merrill Company

TO MY WIFE

List of Illustrations

Five people dressed for costume ball, four sitting, one standing . . .
(Frontispiece)

The handsomest girl I had set eyes upon in a month of moons.

"This is what I want. How much?" I inquired.

Turning, I beheld an exquisite Columbine.

I led her over to a secluded nook. We sat down.

And there we sat, calmly munching the apples.

"Madame, will you do me the honor to raise your mask?"

We watched the girl as she bathed and bandaged the wounded arm.

With a contented sigh she rested her blue-slippered feet on the brass
fender.

HEARTS AND MASKS

I

It all depends upon the manner of your entrance to the Castle of
Adventure. One does not have to scale its beetling parapets or assault
its scarps and frowning bastions; neither is one obliged to force with
clamor and blaring trumpets and glittering gorgets the drawbridge and
portcullis. Rather the pathway lies through one of those many little
doors, obscure, yet easily accessible, latchless and boltless, to which
the average person gives no particular attention, and yet which
invariably lead to the very heart of this Castle Delectable. The
whimsical chatelaine of t