The Heart of Arethusa

Images of the original pages are available through the Kentuckiana Digital Library. See http://kdl.kyvl.org/cgi/t/text/text-idx?c=kyetexts;cc=kyetexts;xc=1&idno=b92-213-30910698&view=toc Transcriber's Note: Minor typographical errors have been corrected without note. Dialect spellings, contractions, and discrepancies have been retained. The Table of Contents was not printed in the book and has been created for the convenience of the reader. ARETHUSA THE HEART OF ARETHUSA By FRANCES BARTON FOX WITH A FRONTISPIECE BY F. W. READ BOSTON SMALL, MAYNARD AND COMPANY PUBLISHERS Copyright, 1918 By SMALL, MAYNARD & COMPANY ( Incorporated ) TO GEORGE MADDEN MARTIN Who found me young; full ignorant of the trade To which my soul aspired. So it was she made, With friendly kindness of a generous heart, Some of her busy hours to know still worthier aim; Seeing that I learned a trifle of the writing game. And in what I've written, she has had her part. CONTENTS I XIV II XV III XVI IV XVII V XVIII VI XIX VII XX VIII XXI IX XXII X XXIII XI XXIV XII XV XIII THE HEART OF ARETHUSA At the end of a long, straight avenue of symmetrically developed water maple trees (the trunks of all the trees whitewashed to precisely the same height from the ground) the house gleamed creamy-white, directly facing the Pike. Its broad front door came exactly within the middle distance of this vista of maples, as though the long-ago builder had known that Miss Eliza's orderly soul would have suffered much unhappiness had it swerved a fraction from the centre and, looking forward to the time when she should rule at the Farm, had planned it all to save her the trouble of a change. Miss Eliza would have been sorely tempted to move either the house or the avenue, had not the front door been so placed as to be viewed from the exact middle of that avenue; such was her passion for neatness and precision. And there was not a weed nor a ragged-looking patch of grass in the whole length of the brown dirt road between those evenly grown maples; nor a weed nor a ragged-looking patch of grass in the whole of the front yard, enclosed in its white board fence with the one flat board laid all around the top. This was a board whose position and height from the ground had always made it irresistible to Arethusa. It had been one of the…