Olivia

Most everybody thinks that the public library is a mighty fine institution--teaches people to read, and all that. Well, so it does, but does any one ever think of the great risk that a person, who takes a book out of a public library, runs of catching some contagious disease?

Every time a bacteriological examination is made of the public library book, germs of every known disease are found among its pages. Probably, from your own experience, you know that lots of people never think of taking a book from the public library, until some one in their family is sick and wants something to read.

As records prove that ninety per cent of the demand for books at the public libraries is for works of fiction, it strikes us that the reading public would do better to patronize the S. & S. novel list which contains hundreds of books to be found in the public libraries, and many hundreds of others just as good and interesting.

The price of the S. & S. novels is a low one indeed to pay for protection from disease-laden literature. Why run the risk, then, when you can get a fresh, clean book for little money and thus insure your health?

STREET & SMITH, Publishers NEW YORK

OLIVIA.

CHAPTER I.

SOMETHING OF A MYSTERY.

It was in the “merry month” of May, the “beautiful harbinger of summer,” as the poets call it; and one of those charming east winds which render England such a delightful place of residence for the delicate and consumptive, and are truly a boon and a blessing to the doctors and undertakers, was blowing gaily through one of the lovely villages of Devonshire, and insidiously stealing through the half opened French windows of the drawing-room of Hawkwood Grange.

Three persons were seated in this drawing-room. An old gentleman, a lady--who would have had a fit on the spot if any one had called her old--and a young girl.

The old gentleman was called Sparrow--Mr. Sparrow, the solicitor, of Wainford, the market town and borough three miles off. The old--the middle-aged and would-be youthful lady--was Miss Amelia Vanley, the maiden sister of the master of Hawkwood Grange; and the young lady was Olivia Vanley, his daughter, and, therefore, Miss Amelia’s niece.

Miss Amelia was presiding at the five o’clock teatable; Mr. Sparrow was performing the difficult feat of balancing a teacup in one hand and a bread-and-butter plate in the other; and Olivia was seated at the piano, which she occasionally touched absently as she half listened to the other two. On a chair beside her was a sealskin jacket--there had been snow on this “merry” May morning, if you please--and she still wore her hat.

Above the piano hung one of those old-fashioned circular mirrors which reflect the face and bust of the player, and it presented a face which was beautiful, and something more than beautiful.

We have lost our climate and our trade--so it is said--but thank Heaven, there are still pretty girls left in England. When they disappear, it will be time for us to put up the shutters and vacate the island; but until that happens, it will still be worth living in.

To be consistent with her name, Olivia should have been of a dark and olive complexion; but the only thing dark in the lovely face were the hazel eyes. Her hair was an auburn chestnut, which Joshua Reynolds loved to paint, with eyebrows to match; mouth “rather large,” as Miss Amelia declared--she possessed, and was exceedingly proud of, one of the well known speaking doll pattern--but as expressive as the eyes. Face and figure were eloquent of youth and perfect health, and her voice was full of that music which youth and health and womanly refinement and delicacy combine to give.

The Grange was the principal house in Hawkwood, and the room was a very fair specimen of the drawing-rooms in a modern country mansion.