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Now-a-Days
NOW-A-DAYS!
NEW-YORK:
T. L. MAGAGNOS & CO.,
16 BEEKMAN-STREET.
1854.ENTERED, according to act of Congress, in the year One Thousand Eight Hundred and Fifty-four, by T. L. MAGAGNOS & CO., in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States, for the Southern District of New York.
To F. P. L.
TO THE FRIEND WHO WITH ME HAS PLIED THE NEEDLE,
AND GUIDED THE PEN,
AND WITH WHOM I HAVE SPENT SO MANY HAPPY, BUSY HOURS,
THIS VOLUME IS AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED, BY
THE AUTHOR.
PREFACE.
IN this little volume, the authoress has endeavored to give a few faithful pictures of life, now-a-days; and, in doing this, she has painted always from nature. Every scene, in which the story is laid, has been familiar to her own eyes; imagination has scarcely added finishing touches to the landscapes and portraits she has drawn.
Maine backwoods life she has, especially, aimed to make true to nature, as it is the first time that it has ever been admitted into romance-world. The manners and customs of this, hitherto, far-off and "unknown land," she has examined for herself. She has, herself, passed over the rough road which Esther travels with her loquacious guide; she has rested at the same roadside inns. She trusts that those, who are entirely ignorant of this kind of life, will be interested and amused in the pictures she gives them, page: vi-vii (Table of Contents) [View Page vi-vii (Table of Contents) ] and that none will censure her for daring to offer a new thing to the novel-reading public.
In writing "Now-a-days," she has stepped a little aside from the path which story writers have, generally, trodden before. She has aimed at naturalness, rather than at anything marked and startling. The public taste is growing weary of murders, and wars, and rumors of wars, and she has preferred to leave these trite themes to some more fiery pen, and to paint, as faithfully as was in her power, real life, New-England life.
F. R. A.
CONTENTS.
- I.—A Sudden Cloud. 9
- II.—The Step-Mother. 17
- III.—Plans for the Future. 34
- IV.—On the Way. 41
- V.—The Work-Field reached. 52
- VI.—Work begun. 62
- VII.—The Valley of the Shadow of Death. 78
- VIII.—A Sabbath in the Wilderness. 89
- IX.—The Conference. 94
- X.—The Camp. 101
- XI.—An Evening with the Lumbermen. 109
- XII.—More about the Lumbermen. 125
- XIII.—Colonel Gordon. 143
- XIV.—A Family Picture. 159
- XV.—Clarendon Springs. 163
- XVI.—A chat, in school-girl fashion. 172
- XVII.—A new Friend. 184
- XVIII.—Second Love. 190
- XIX.—Second Marriage. 200
- XX.—Down-East again. 212
- page: viii (Table of Contents) -9[View Page viii (Table of Contents) -9]
- XXI.—The Sewing-Circle. 232
- XXII.—An Unexpected Meeting. 250
- XXIII.—Maria. 257
- XXIV.—A peep into Futurity. 270
- XXV.—A Trial. 279
- XXVI.—Virginia at Home. 288
- XXVII.—Two Life-paths and the Choice. 295
- XXVIII.—Almost an old Maid. 303
