

E-text prepared by Roger Frank, Brownfox, and the Project Gutenberg Online
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NELL, OF SHORNE MILLS

Or, One Heart's Burden

by CHARLES GARVICE

Author of
"Better Than Life," "A Life's Mistake," "Once in a Life,"
"'Twas Love's Fault," etc.







A. L. Burt Company
Publishers  ::  ::  ::  New York
1898



NELL, OF SHORNE MILLS




CHAPTER I.


"Dick, how many are twenty-seven and eight?"

The girl looked up, with narrow eyes and puckered brow, from the
butcher's book, which she was laboriously "checking," at the boy who
leaned back on the window seat picking out a tune on a banjo.

"Thirty-nine," he replied lazily but promptly, without ceasing to peck,
peck at the strings.

She nodded her thanks, and traveled slowly up the column, counting with
the end of her pencil and jotting down the result with a perplexed face.

They were brother and sister, Nell and Dick Lorton, and they made an
extremely pretty picture in the sunny room. The 