AN ALGONQUIN MAIDEN ***
Produced by Wendy Crockett, Juliet Sutherland, Charles Franks and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team from images generously made available by the Canadian Institute for Historical Microreproductions.
AN ALGONQUIN MAIDEN
A ROMANCE OF THE EARLY DAYS OF UPPER CANADA
BY
G. MERCER ADAM AND A. ETHELWYN WETHERALD
Entered according to Act of Parliament, in the year one thousand eight hundred and eighty-six, by GRAEME MERCER ADAM and AGNES ETHELWYN WETHERALD, in the Office of the Minister of Agriculture, Ottawa.
TO THE VETERAN PUBLISHER, John Lovell, Esq., OF MONTREAL, WHO HAS SPENT A LONG AND BUSY LIFE IN THE VARIED SERVICE OF HIS COUNTRY, THIS MODEST EFFORT IN THE FIELD OF CANADIAN FICTION IS AFFECTIONATELY AND ADMIRINGLY DEDICATED BY THE AUTHORS.
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I.
The Young Master of Pine Towers
CHAPTER II.
An Upper Canadian Household
CHAPTER III.
"When Summer Days were Fair"
CHAPTER IV.
Indian Annals and Legends
CHAPTER V.
The Algonquin Maiden
CHAPTER VI.
Catechisings
CHAPTER VII.
An Accident
CHAPTER VIII.
Convalescence
CHAPTER IX.
On the Way to the Capital
CHAPTER X.
York and the Maitlands
CHAPTER XI.
After "The Ball"
CHAPTER XII.
A Kiss and its Consequences
CHAPTER XIII.
Rival Attractions
CHAPTER XIV.
"Muddy Little York"
CHAPTER XV.
Politics at the Capital
CHAPTER XVI.
Love's Protestations
CHAPTER XVII.
A Picnic in the Woods
CHAPTER XVIII.
The Commodore Surrenders
CHAPTER XIX.
At Stamford Cottage
CHAPTER XX.
The Coming of Wanda
CHAPTER XXI.
The Passing of Wanda
CHAPTER XXII.
Love's Rewards
AN ALGONQUIN MAIDEN.
CHAPTER I.
THE YOUNG MASTER OF PINE TOWERS.
It was a May morning in 1825--spring-time of the year, late spring-time of the century. It had rained the night before, and a warm pallor in the eastern sky was the only indication that the sun was trying to pierce the gray dome of nearly opaque watery fog, lying low upon that part of the world now known as the city of Toronto, then the town of Little York. This cluster of five or six hundred houses had taken up a determined position at the edge of a forest then gloomily forbidding in its aspect, interminable in extent, inexorable in its resistance to the shy or to the sturdy approaches of the settler. Man _versus_ nature--the successive assaults of perishing humanity upon the almost impregnable fortresses of the eternal forests--this was the struggle of Canadian civilization, and its hard-won triumphs were bodied forth in the scattered roofs of these cheap habitations. Seen now through soft gradations of vapoury gloom, they took on a poetic significance, as tenderly intangible as the romantic halo which the mist of years loves to weave about the heads of departed pioneers, who, for the most part, lived out their lives in plain, grim style, without any thought of posing as "conquering heroes" in the eyes of succeeding generations.
