The Project Gutenberg eBook, At Home with the Jardines, by Lilian Bell

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Title: At Home with the Jardines

Author: Lilian Bell

Release Date: July 22, 2006 [eBook #18895]

Language: English

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

***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AT HOME WITH THE JARDINES***

E-text prepared by Al Haines

AT HOME WITH THE JARDINES

by

LILIAN BELL

Author of "Abroad with the Jimmies," "Hope Loring,", etc.

A. Wessels Company
New York
1906

Copyright, 1902
by Harper & Brothers

Copyright, 1903
by the Ridgway-Thayer Company

Copyright, 1904
by Ainslee Magazine Co.

Copyright, 1904
by L. C. Page & Company (Incorporated)

(All rights reserved)

TO

Dr. John Sedgwick Billings, Jr.

AND

Dr. John Clarendon Todd

WHOSE COURAGE, SKILL, AND WISDOM

SAVED A PRECIOUS LIFE

Contents

Chapter

I. MARY
II. THEORIES
III. ON THE SUBJECT OF JANITORS
IV. THE ANGEL AND THE AGENT
V. HOW WE TAMED THE COOK
VI. THE BEST MAN'S STORY
VII. THE PRICE OF QUIET
VIII. MOVING
IX. HOW BEE TRIED TO MAKE US SMART
X. OUR FIRST HOUSE-PARTY
XI. ON THE GENTLE ART OF WASTING OTHER PEOPLE'S TIME
XII. A LETTER FROM JIMMIE
XIII. THE BREAKING UP OF MARY
XIV. AND THEY LIVED HAPPY EVER AFTER

At Home with the Jardines

CHAPTER I

MARY

I have never dared even inquire why our best man began calling my
husband the Angel. He was with us a great deal during the first months
of our marriage, and he is very observing, so I decided to let sleeping
dogs lie. I, too, am observing.

It is only fair to state, in justice to the best man, that I am a woman
of emotional mountain peaks and dark, deep valleys, while the Angel is
one vast and sunny plateau. With him rain comes in soothing showers,
while rain in my disposition means a soaking, drenching torrent which
sweeps away cattle and cottages and leaves roaring rivers in its wake.
But it took Mary to discover that the smiling plateau was bedded on
solid rock, and had its root in infinity.

Mary is my cook!

Yet Mary is more than cook. She is my housekeeper, mother, trained
nurse, corporati