GRIM TALES.
BY E. NESBIT.
London:
A. D. INNES & CO.,
31 & 32, BEDFORD STREET, STRAND, W.C.
1893.
My thanks are due to the Editors of Longman's Magazine, Temple Bar,the Argosy, Home Chimes, and the Illustrated London News, in whichperiodicals these stories first appeared.
E. Nesbit.
[Handwritten note from author]
a card to say if you
have any of these, &
if so which? In
great haste E. Nesbit
P.T.O.
The Rosetree of Hildesheim Weston
Songs without answer Putnam
Songs of love & death Armour
A Trip to Fairyland Morgan
Arrows of Song
The Pilgrim Jewitt
Flamma Vestalis Mason
Scintilloe Carminis Almy
CONTENTS.
| PAGE | |
| The Ebony Frame | 9 |
| John Charrington's Wedding | 37 |
| Uncle Abraham's Romance | 57 |
| The Mystery of the Semi-detached | 67 |
| From the Dead | 77 |
| Man-size in Marble | 111 |
| The Mass for the Dead | 145 |
GRIM TALES.
THE EBONY FRAME.
To be rich is a luxurious sensation—the more so when you have plumbedthe depths of hard-up-ness as a Fleet Street hack, a picker-up ofunconsidered pars, a reporter, an unappreciated journalist—all callingsutterly inconsistent with one's family feeling and one's direct descentfrom the Dukes of Picardy.
When my Aunt Dorcas died and left me seven hundred a year and afurnished house in Chelsea, I felt that life had nothing left to offerexcept immediate possession of the legacy. Even Mildred Mayhew, whom Ihad hitherto regarded as my life's light, became less luminous. I wasnot engaged to Mildred, but I lodged with her mother, and I sang duetswith Mildred, and gave her gloves when it would ru