The Project Gutenberg EBook of Colonel Carter's Christmas and The Romance
of an Old-Fashioned Gentleman, by F. Hopkinson Smith

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Title: Colonel Carter's Christmas and The Romance of an Old-Fashioned Gentleman

Author: F. Hopkinson Smith

Illustrator: F. C. Yohn
A. I. Keller

Release Date: January 7, 2009 [EBook #27741]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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COLONEL CARTER'S CHRISTMAS

THE ROMANCE OF AN OLD-FASHIONED GENTLEMAN

BY

F. HOPKINSON SMITH

ILLUSTRATED BY

F. C. YOHN and A. I. KELLER

CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
NEW YORK:::::::::::::::::::::1911

COLONEL CARTER'S CHRISTMAS

COPYRIGHT, 1903, BY
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS

THE ROMANCE OF AN OLD-FASHIONED
GENTLEMAN

COPYRIGHT, 1907, BY
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS

[Illustration: Katy dropped her head on his shoulder again.]

_To my Readers:_

It will be remembered, doubtless, that the chronicles of my very dear
friend, Colonel Carter (published some years ago), make mention of but
one festival of importance--a dinner given at Carter Hall, near
Cartersville, Virginia; the Colonel's ancestral home. This dinner, as
you already know, was to celebrate two important events--the sale to
the English syndicate of the coal lands, the exclusive property of the
Colonel's beloved aunt, Miss Nancy Carter; and the instantaneous
transfer by that generous woman of all the purchase money to the
Colonel's slender bank account: a transaction which, to quote his own
words as he gallantly drank her health in acknowledgment of the gift,
"enabled him to provide for one of the loveliest of her sex--she who
graces our boa'd--and to enrich her declining days not only with all
the comforts, but with many of the luxuries she was bawn to enjoy."

Several other festivals, however, did take place: not in the days of
the dear Colonel's prosperity, nor yet at Carter Hall, but in his
impecunious days in New York, while he was still living in the little
house on Bedford Place within a stone'