The Project Gutenberg EBook of Sword and Gown, by George A. Lawrence

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Title: Sword and Gown
A Novel

Author: George A. Lawrence

Release Date: August 25, 2006 [EBook #19121]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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SWORD AND GOWN.

A Novel.

BY THE AUTHOR OF
"GUY LIVINGSTONE."

NEW YORK:
FRANKLIN SQUARE.
1859.

[Transcriber's note: the author was George Alfred Lawrence]

CHAPTER I.

"There _is_ something in this climate, after all. I suppose there are
not many places where one could lie on the shore in December, and enjoy
the air as much as I have done for the last two hours."

Harry Molyneux turned his face seaward again as he spoke, and drank in
the soft breeze eagerly; he could scarcely help thanking it aloud, as it
stole freshly over his frame, and played gently with his hair, and left
a delicate caress on his cheek--the cheek that was now always so pale,
save in the one round scarlet spot where, months ago, Consumption had
hung out her flag of "No surrender."

There is enough in the scene to justify an average amount of enthusiasm.
Those steep broken hills in the background form the frontier fortress of
the maritime Alps, the last outwork of which is the rocky spur on which
Molyneux and his companion are lying. Fir woods feather the sky-line;
and from among these, here and there, the tall stone pines stand up
alone, like sentinels--steady, upright, and unwearied, though their
guard has not been relieved for centuries. All around, wild myrtle, and
heath, and eglantine curl and creep up the stems of the olives, trying,
from the contact of their fresh youth, to infuse new life and sap into
the gray, gnarled old trees, even as a fair Jewish maiden once strove to
cherish her war-worn, d