Red-Robin   By: Jane Abbott (1881-)

AUTHOR OF KEINETH, HIGHACRES, APRILLY, Etc.

With Illustrations By HARRIET ROOSEVELT RICHARDS

GROSSET & DUNLAP PUBLISHERS NEW YORK

Made in the United States of America

COPYRIGHT, 1922, BY J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY

[Illustration: THE EFFECT WAS VERY CHRISTMASY Page 196]

TO BETSY

CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE

Prologue A Story Before the Story 11 I. The Orphan Doll 19 II. A Prince 28 III. The House of Forsyth 39 IV. Red Robin 49 V. Jimmie 61 VI. The Forsyth Heir 70 VII. Beryl 79 VIII. Robin Asserts Herself 90 IX. The Lynchs 103 X. The Lady of the Rushing Waters 114 XI. Pot Roast and Cabbage Salad 126 XII. Robin Writes a Letter 138 XIII. Susy Castle 151 XIV. A Gift to the Queen 164 XV. The Party 176 XVI. Christmas at the Manor 190 XVII. The House of Laughter 204 XVIII. The Luckless Stocking 220 XIX. Granny 235 XX. Robin's Beginning 250 XXI. At the Granger Mills 266 XXII. The Green Beads 279 XXIII. Robin's Rescue 292 XXIV. Madame Forsyth Comes Home 305 Epilogue A Story After the Story 318

ILLUSTRATIONS PAGE

The Effect Was Very Christmasy Frontispiece The Beautiful Little Girl Had Not Spoken To Her 20 "Couldn't I Run Away With You?" 56 "It's Like The House of Bread And Cake" 119

RED ROBIN

PROLOGUE

A STORY BEFORE THE STORY

On a green hillside a girl lay prone in the sweet grass, very still that she might not, by the slightest quiver, disturb the beauty that was about her. There was so very, very much beauty the sky, azure blue overhead and paling where it touched the green fringed earth; the whispering tree under which she lay, the lush meadow grass, moving like waves of a sea, the bird nesting above her, everything

And Moira O'Donnell, who had never been farther than the boundaries of her county, knew the whole world was beautiful, too.

Behind her, hid in a hollow, stood the small cottage where, at that very moment, her grandmother was preparing the evening meal. And, beyond, in the village was the little old stone church and Father Murphy's square bit of a house with its wide doorstep and its roof of thatch, and Widow Mulligan's and the Denny's and the Finnegan's and all the others.

Moira loved them all and loved the hospitable homes where there was always, in spite of poverty, a bounty of good feeling.

And before her, just beyond that last steep rise, was the sea. She could hear its roar now, like a deep voice drowning the clearer pipe of the winging birds and the shrill of the little grass creatures. Often she went down to its edge, but at this hour she liked best to lie in the grass and dream her dreams to its lifting music.