The Project Gutenberg eBook, Was It Right to Forgive?, by Amelia Edith
Huddleston Barr

This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org

Title: Was It Right to Forgive?
A Domestic Romance

Author: Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr

Release Date: July 18, 2010 [eBook #33195]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)

***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WAS IT RIGHT TO FORGIVE?***

E-text prepared by Katherine Ward and the Project Gutenberg Online
Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net) from page images
generously made available by Internet Archive/American Libraries
(http://www.archive.org/details/americana)

Note: Images of the original pages are available through
Internet Archive/American Libraries. See
http://www.archive.org/details/wasitrighttofor00barrgoog

Transcriber's note:

Original spellings, including froward and Parry, were preserved
as printed in the original.

Text in italics is enclosed by underscores (_italics_).

WAS IT RIGHT TO FORGIVE?

A Domestic Romance

by

AMELIA E. BARR

Chicago
Monarch Book Company
Publishers

Copyright 1899, By
Herbert S. Stone & Co

CHAPTER I

Peter Van Hoosen was a result of Dutch Calvinism, and Dutch industry
and thrift; also, of a belief in the Day of Judgment. The first
motives were inherited tendencies, carefully educated; the last one, a
conscious principle, going down to the depths of his nature and
sharply dividing whatever was just and right from whatever was false
and wrong. People whose religion was merely religiosity thought he
took himself too seriously; but if they had a house to build, they
wanted this man--who worked in the great Task-master's eye--to lay its
foundation and raise its walls. So that, as a builder in stone, Peter
Van Hoosen had a wide local celebrity.

He was a strong, loose-limbed man, with a swarthy face and straight
black hair, a man of sturdy beliefs and strong prepossessions, yet not
devoid of those good manners which spring naturally from a good heart.
Among his fellows he was grave and silent, and his entire personality
had something of the coldness and strength of the stony material wit