Chapter I: Front Matter

GIRLS IN BOOKLAND
HILDEGARDE HAWTHORNE

A DEMURE LITTLE CROWD THEY WERE, STANDING PRIMLY, HAND IN HAND
]

GIRLS IN BOOKLAND

BY
HILDEGARDE HAWTHORNE

ILLUSTRATED BY
JOHN WOLCOTT ADAMS

NEW YORK
GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY

COPYRIGHT, 1917,
BY GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY

COPYRIGHT, 1915, 1916,
BY THE BUTTERICK PUBLISHING COMPANY

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

To
MY FOUR LITTLE NIECES
UNA, ROSAMOND,
SYLVIA AND JOAN

------------------------------------------------------------------------

A WORD BEFORE THE STORY

Inside this world in which we live there is another world, a very wonderful world, that is ours for the taking. Many things in the world we live in every day are denied to us. Maybe for the reason that we cannot possibly learn how to make use of them all, even though we think we want them very much. Lots of us can never hunt lions in Africa or sail the high seas, or find gold, or herd cows on the wild prairies, or know a pirate, or run an engine, or become kings or queens or presidents or the wives of presidents, or anything great and famous like that. We have to let others do those things, and they again have to let us do the things we do. We can each only be our kind of boy or girl, man or woman.

But in the world inside this we can be and do anything, not only now and here, but back in dim ages when knights were bold and castles held prisoned princesses. We can know intimately all sorts of people, savages and noblemen, cowboys and bank-clerks, fairies and fisher folk, poor little children and rich little children, great captains and wicked robbers, lovely ladies and strange old women, poets and farmers. We can go on high adventure and find dreams come true. We can be hundreds of different persons, men and women and boys and girls, beasts and fishes, clouds and mountains. Once inside that world, anything is liable to happen to us.

This inside world is the world of books. There, on your bookshelf, inside the quiet-looking blue and brown and red and green volumes, all sorts of exciting things are going on, all sorts of people are busy over all sorts of affairs, talking and laughing, crying and playing, having marvellous escapes, doing wonderful deeds. If we could just step inside those books and join in the life going on so busily—lose ourselves in one book after another! Wouldn’t it be thrilling?

Rose and Ruth were lucky in having the fairy to help them, to be sure. But even without a fairy much may be done.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE
I. HOW IT BEGAN TO OPEN 15

II. THE WINNER OF THE TORCH RACE 25

III. AN ADVENTURE WITH LITTLE WOMEN 45

IV. A LOOKING-GLASS VISIT 61

V. A TOURNAMENT AND A RESCUE WITH ROWENA 83

VI. AFTERNOON TEA IN CRANFORD 107

VII. A LETTER FROM LORNA 125

VIII. LITTLE MAID MARIAN 145

IX. THE ADVENTURE IN GUINEVERE’S CASTLE 163

X. IN THE HIELANDS WITH DI VERNON 185

XI. A SUMMER DAY WITH RAMONA 203

XII. ROMOLA AND THE FLORENTINE BOY 221

XIII. LITTLE NELL AND THE BUN-SHOP 239

XIV. EVANGELINE AND THE BIG BEAR 255

XV. THE LITTLE QUAKER-CITY MAID 273

ILLUSTRATIONS

A demure little crowd they were, standing primly, hand in hand
_Frontispiece_

PAGE
Sappho passed her without a glance 28

They finally reached the cottage 48

“You see,” they both remarked confidentially, “we knew Alice, so
of course we had to choose you” 64

“Room for the Lady Rowena, the Lady Rose, the Lady Ruth, and the
noble Thane Cedric” 86

For there was Peter on the doctor’s horse, with Ruth mounted
behind him 110

“Hush, Lorna. No one shall hurt them. But they must go from here
at once. Two of my boys are saddling now” 128

“Greeting, sweet maid,” he said to Marian 148

The youth, dismounting, walked slowly toward Guinevere 166

“Rob Roy is frae the Hielands come, Down to the Lowland border” 188

The other, slender, youthful, in white, must be Ramona 206

“Father, here are the two friends I told you of,” said Romola 224

“Ladies,” said Dick Swiveller, “I will accept your kind, nay, your
princely offer. Let us drink confusion in this tea—confusion to
dire destiny” 242

So Gabriel climbed in between Ruth and Evangeline, and the little
party hastened on toward the cape 258

GIRLS IN BOOKLAND