The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Making of Mary, by Jean Forsyth

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Title: The Making of Mary

Author: Jean Forsyth

Release Date: September 22, 2006 [EBook #19343]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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THE "UNKNOWN" LIBRARY

THE MAKING
OF MARY

BY
JEAN FORSYTH

NEW YORK
THE CASSELL PUBLISHING CO.
31 EAST 17TH ST. (UNION SQUARE)

COPYRIGHT, 1895, BY
THE CASSELL PUBLISHING CO.

_All rights reserved._

THE MERSHON COMPANY PRESS,
RAHWAY, N. J.

PROLOGUE.

A STURDY northeast wind was rattling the doors and windows of a deserted
farmhouse in Western Michigan. The building was not old, measured by
years, but it had never been painted or repaired, and its wooden face,
prematurely lined with weather stains, looked as if it had borne the
wear and tear of centuries. The windows, like lidless eyes, stared
vacantly at the flat stubble fields and the few spindling trees, a
dreary apology for an orchard. There were plenty of shingles off the
roof to allow the inquisitive rain-drops to follow one another through
the rafters, and thence to the floor of the room below, where the
darkness was creeping out of the corners to take possession.

The house had been but recently vacated, for there was still a "slab"
smoldering on the hearth of the wide fireplace in the outer kitchen, and
something that looked almost human, wrapped in a ragged bedquilt, was
lying much too near it for safety. A friendly gust of wind came down the
chimney, bringing back the smoke, and drawing a faint cough from the
bundle. Another gust and another cough, and then a sneeze which burst
open the quilt, to disclose an ill-clad little girl, six or seven years
old.

She gazed about with drowsy blue eyes till terror of the darkness made
her draw the tattered comforter over her head again, and crouching
nearer to the smolderi