THE

PEARL OF ORR'S ISLAND:

A STORY OF THE COAST OF MAINE.

BY

MRS. HARRIET BEECHER STOWE,

AUTHOR OF "UNCLE TOM'S CABIN," "THE MINISTER'S WOOING," ETC.

THIRD EDITION.

02

BOSTON:

TICKNOR AND FIELDS.

57774

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1862, by

MRS. HARRIET BEECHER STOWE,

in the Clerk's Office of the District Court for the District of Massachusetts.

1

RIVERSIDE, CAMBRIDGE:

STEREOTYPED AND PRINTED BY H. O. HOUGHTON.

PS 2954

Pu

1862 MAIN

THE PEARL OF ORR'S ISLAND.

CHAPTER I.

On the road to the Kennebec, below the town of Bath, in the State of Maine, might have been seen, on a certain autumnal afternoon, a one-horse wagon, in which two persons were sitting. One is an old man, with the peculiarly hard but expressive physiognomy which characterizes the seafaring population of the New England shores.

A clear blue eye, evidently practised in habits of keen observation, white hair, bronzed, weather-beaten cheeks, and a face deeply lined with the furrows of shrewd thought and anxious care, were points of the portrait that made themselves felt at a glance.

By his side sat a young woman of two-and-twenty, of a marked and peculiar personal appearance. Her hair was black, and smoothly parted on a broad forehead, to which a pair of pencilled dark eyebrows gave a striking and definite outline. Beneath, lay a pair of large black eyes, remarkable for tremulous expression of melancholy and timidity. The cheek was white and bloodless as a snowberry, though with the clear and perfect oval of good health; the mouth was delicately formed, with a certain sad quiet in its lines, which indicated a habitually repressed and sensitive nature.

The dress of this young person, as often happens in