An Orkney Maid by Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr

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AN ORKNEY MAID

By AMELIA E. BARR

An Orkney Maid Christine Joan Profit and Loss Three Score and Ten The Measure of a Man The Winning of Lucia Playing with Fire All the Days of My Life

D. APPLETON & COMPANY Publishers New York

[Illustration: "Ian was utterly charmed with the picture she made----" [PAGE 60]]

AN ORKNEY MAID

BY AMELIA E. BARR

AUTHOR OF "CHRISTINE," "JOAN," "PROFIT AND LOSS," ETC.

_"The pleasant habit of existence, the sweet fable of life."_

ILLUSTRATED

D. APPLETON AND COMPANY NEW YORK LONDON 1918

Printed in the United States of America

TO MY DEAR FRIEND DR. MARTIN BARR OF ELWYNN, PENNSYLVANIA, I INSCRIBE THIS BOOK. AMELIA E. BARR.

"_Honor and truth formed your will, Your heart, fidelity._"

_MOTTO_

_"You can glad your child, or grieve it, You can help it, or deceive it, When all is done, Beneath God's sun, You can only love, and leave it."_

CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE Introduction 1 I. The House of Ragnor 7 II. Adam Vedder's Trouble 30 III. Aries the Ram 47 IV. Sunna and Her Grandfather 72 V. Sunna and Thora 98 VI. The Old, Old Trouble 129 VII. The Call of War 164 VIII. Thora's Problem 193 IX. The Bread of Bitterness 230 X. The One Remains, the Many Change and Pass 271 XI. Sequences 304

INTRODUCTION

Yesterday morning this thing happened to me: I was reading the _New York Times_ and my eyes suddenly fell upon one word, and that word rang a little bell in my memory, "Kirkwall!" The next moment I had closed my eyes in order to see backward more clearly, and slowly, but surely, the old, old town--standing boldly upon the very beach of the stormy North Sea--became clear in my mental vision. There was a whole fleet of fishing boats, and a few smart smuggling craft rocking gently in its wonderful harbour--a harbour so deep and safe, and so capacious that it appeared capable of sheltering the navies of the world.

I was then eighteen years old, I am now over eighty-six; and the straits of Time have widened and widened with every year, so that many things appear to have been carried away into forgetfulness by the stress and flow of full waters. But not so! They are only lying in out-of-the-way corners of consciousness, and can easily be recalled by some word that has the potency of a spell over them.

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