A Rose of a Hundred Leaves by Barr

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A ROSE OF A HUNDRED LEAVES

A Love Story

BY AMELIA E. BARR

AUTHOR OF "FRIEND OLIVIA," "THE BOW OF ORANGE RIBBON," "JAN VEDDER'S WIFE," ETC.

NEW YORK DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY 1891

University Press: John Wilson and Son, Cambridge.

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER PAGE I. The Wild Rose is the Sweetest 9 II. Forgive me, Christ! 35 III. Only Brother Will 77 IV. For Mother's Sake 113 V. But they were Young 151 VI. "Love shall be Lord of Sandy-Side" 180 VII. "A Rose of a Hundred Leaves" 208

CHAPTER I.

THE WILD ROSE IS THE SWEETEST.

I tell again the oldest and the newest story of all the world,--the story of Invincible Love!

This tale divine--ancient as the beginning of things, fresh and young as the passing hour--has forms and names various as humanity. The story of Aspatria Anneys is but one of these,--one leaf from all the roses in the world, one note of all its myriad of songs.

Aspatria was born at Seat-Ambar, an old house in Allerdale. It had Skiddaw to shelter it on the northwest; and it looked boldly out across the Solway, and into that sequestered valley in Furness known as "the Vale of the Deadly Nightshade." The plant still grew there abundantly, and the villagers still kept the knowledge of its medical value taught them by the old monks of Furness. For these curious, patient herbalists had discovered the blessing hidden in the fair, poisonous amaryllis, long before modern physicians called it "belladonna."

The plant, with all its lovely relations, had settled in the garden at Seat-Ambar. Aspatria's mother had loved them all: the girl could still remember her thin white hands clasping the golden jonquils in her coffin. This memory was in her heart, as she hastened through the lonely place one evening in spring. It ought to have been a pleasant spot, for it was full of snowdrops and daffodils, and many sweet old-fashioned shrubs and flowers; but it was a stormy night, and the blossoms were plashed and downcast, and all the birds in hiding from the fierce wind and driving rain.

She was glad to get out of the gray, wet, shivery atmosphere, and to come into the large hall, ruddy and glowing with fire and candle-light. Her brothers William and Brune sat at the table. Will was counting money; it stood in small gold and silver pillars before him. Brune was making fishing-flies. Both looked up at her entrance; they did not think words necessary for such a little maid. Yet both loved her; she was their only sister, and both gave her the respect to which she was entitled as co-heir with them of the Ambar estate.

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