A Romance of Billy-Goat Hill

								


Produced by Phil McLaury, Juliet Sutherland, Charles Franks
and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team

A ROMANCE OF BILLY-GOAT HILL
By Alice Hegan Rice
Author of Mrs. Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch Lovey Mary, Sandy, Etc.
With Illustrations By George Weight

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
“Do you believe in love, Doctor?”
The Colonel leaned back upon his knees and glared at Morley
There was a sharp report, a smothered groan, then a heavy fall
She held it to the flame, and watched it burn to ashes on the hearth
Maria began to cry, and forgot to jolt the Boarder
Mrs. Sequin paused with her hand on the banister
“It was a great wrong I did you, Don; can you forgive me?”
“Tell me quick! How do you know about the shooting?”

CHAPTER I

It was springtime in Kentucky, gay, irresponsible, Southern springtime,
that comes bursting impetuously through highways and byways, heedless of
possible frosts and impossible fruitions. A glamour of tender new green
enveloped the world, and the air was sweet with the odor of young and
growing things. The brown river, streaked with green where the fresher
currents of the creeks poured in, circled the base of a long hill that
dominated the landscape from every direction.
In spite of the fact that impertinent railroads were beginning to crawl
about its feet, and the flotsam and jetsam of the adjacent city were
gradually being deposited at its base, it nevertheless reared its
granite shoulders proudly and defiantly against the sky.
From the early days when the hill and rich surrounding farm lands
had been granted to the old pioneer William Carsey, one generation of
Carseys after another had lived in the stately old mansion that now
stood like the last remaining fortress against the city's invasion.
Sagging cornices and discolored walls had not dispelled the atmosphere
of contentment that enveloped the place, an effect heightened by the
wide front porch which ran straight across the face of it, like a
broad, complacent smile. Some old houses, like old gallants, bear
an unmistakable air of past prosperity, of past affairs. Romance has
trailed her garments near them and the fragrance lingers.
Thornwood, shabby and neglected, could still afford to drowse in the
sunshine and smile over the past. It remembered the time when its
hospitality was the boast of the countryside, when its stables held the
best string of horses in the State; when its smokehouse, now groaning
under a pile of lumber, sheltered shoulders of pork, and sides of bacon,
and long lines of juicy, sugar-cured hams; when the cellar quartered
battalions of cobwebby bottles that stood at attention on the low
hanging shelves. It was a house ripe with experience and mellow with
memories, a wise, old, sophisticated house, that had had its day, and
enjoyed it, and now, through with ambitions, and through with striving,