E-text prepared by Malcolm Farmer
MISS LUDINGTON'S SISTER
by
Edward Bellamy
| CHAPTER I. |
| CHAPTER II. |
| CHAPTER III. |
| CHAPTER IV. |
| CHAPTER V. |
| CHAPTER VI |
| CHAPTER VII. |
| CHAPTER VIII. |
| CHAPTER IX. |
| CHAPTER X. |
| CHAPTER XI. |
| CHAPTER XII. |
| CHAPTER XIII. |
| CHAPTER XIV. |
| CHAPTER XV. |
CHAPTER I.
The happiness of some lives is distributed pretty evenly over the wholestretch from the cradle to the grave, while that of others comes all atonce, glorifying some particular epoch and leaving the rest in shadow.During one, five, or ten blithe years, as the case may be, all thesprings of life send up sweet waters; joy is in the very air we breathe;happiness seems our native element. During this period we know what isthe zest of living, as compared with the mere endurance of existence,which is, perhaps, the most we have attained to before or since. With menthis culminating epoch comes often in manhood, or even at maturity,especially with men of arduous and successful careers. But with women itcomes most frequently perhaps in girlhood and young womanhood.Particularly is this wont to be the fact with women who do not marry, andwith whom, as the years glide on, life becomes lonelier and its interestsfewer.
By the time Miss Ida Ludington was twenty-five years old she recognisedthat she had done with happiness, and that the pale pleasures of memorywere all which remained to her.
It was not so much the mere fact that her youth was past, saddeningthough that might be, which had so embittered her life, but thepeculiarly cruel manner in which it had been taken from her.
The Ludingtons were one of the old families of Hilton, a little farmingvillage among the hills of Massachusetts. They were not rich, but werewell-to-do, lived in the largest house in the place, and were regardedsomewhat as local magnates. Miss Ludington's childhood had been anexceptionally happy one, and as a girl she had been the belle of thevillage. Her beauty, together, with her social position and amiability ofdisposition, made her the idol of the young men, recognised leader of thegirls, and the animating and central figure in the social life of theplace.
She was about twenty years old, at the height of her beauty and in the