It seems a little strange that I, Abner Stone, now verging upon my seventieth year, should bring pen, ink, and paper before me, with the avowed purpose of setting down the love story of my life, which I had thought locked fast in my heart forever. A thing very sacred to me; of the world, it is true, yet still apart from it, the blessed memory of it all has abode in my breast with the unfading distinctness of an old picture done in oils, and has brightened the years I have thus far lived on the shadowed slope of life. And now has come the firm belief that the [viii]world may be made better by the telling of this story—as my life has been made better by having lived it—and so I shall essay the brief and simple task before my fingers have grown too stiff to hold the pen, trusting that some printer of books will be good enough to put my story into a little volume for all who would care to read. And I, as I pursue the work which I have appointed unto myself, shall again stroll through the meadows and forests of dear Kentucky, shall tread her dusty highways under the spell of a bygone June, and shall sit within the portals of an old home whose floors are now pressed by an alien foot. Now, ere I have scarce begun, the recollections come upon me like a flood, and this page becomes blurred to my failing sight. O Memory! Memory! and the visions of thine!

[viii]

[1]

[1]

THE LOVE STORY of ABNER STONE

I

It is a long path which stretches from forty-five to seventy. A path easy enough to make, for each day's journey through life is a part of it, but very difficult to retrace. When we turn at that advanced mile-stone and look back, things seem misty. For there is many a twist and angle in the highway of a life, and often the things which we would forget stand out the clearest. But I would not drive from my brain this quiet afternoon the visions which enfold it,—the blessed recollections [2]of over a score of years ago. For the sweet voice which speaks in my ear as I write I have never ceased to hear; the face which the mirror of my mind ever reflects before my eyes I have looked upon with 

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