The Project Gutenberg EBook of If Winter Comes, by A.S.M. Hutchinson

This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net

Title: If Winter Comes

Author: A.S.M. Hutchinson

Release Date: November 24, 2004 [EBook #14145]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK IF WINTER COMES ***

Produced by Rick Niles, Karina Aleksandrova and the PG Online
Distributed Proofreading Team.

BY A.S.M. HUTCHINSON

THE HAPPY WARRIOR

ONCE ABOARD THE LUGGER--

THE CLEAN HEART

IF WINTER COMES

IF WINTER COMES
BY
A.S.M. HUTCHINSON

BOSTON
LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY
1921

Published, August, 1921
Reprinted, August, 1921 (twice)
Reprinted, September, 1921 (four times)
Reprinted, October, 1921

PRINTED BY C.H. SIMONDS COMPANY
BOSTON, MASS., U.S.A.

"...O Wind,
If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?"

--SHELLEY

CONTENTS

PART ONE
PAGE
MABEL 1

PART TWO

NONA 77

PART THREE

EFFIE 187

PART FOUR

MABEL--EFFIE--NONA 317

PART ONE

MABEL

IF WINTER COMES

CHAPTER I

I

To take Mark Sabre at the age of thirty-four, and in the year 1912, and
at the place Penny Green is to necessitate looking back a little towards
the time of his marriage in 1904, but happens to find him in good light
for observation. Encountering him hereabouts, one who had shared school
days with him at his preparatory school so much as twenty-four years
back would have found matter for recognition.

A usefully garrulous person, one Hapgood, a solicitor, found much.

"Whom do you think I met yesterday? Old Sabre! You remember old Sabre at
old Wickamote's?... Yes, that's the chap. Used to call him Puzzlehead,
remember? Because he used to screw up his forehead over things old
Wickamote or any of the other masters said and sort of drawl out, 'Well,
I don't see that, sir.'... Yes, rather!... And then that other
expression of his. Just the opposite. When old Wickamote or some one had
landed him, or all of us, with some dashed punishment, and we were
gassing about it, used to