GENTLE JULIA

By
Booth Tarkington

Author of Penrod, Penrod and Sam,
the turmoil, etc.

Illustrated by
C. Allan Gilbert
and
worth Brehm

Grosset & Dunlap
publishers new York

Made in the United States of America

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Copyright, 1922, by
Doubleday, page & company
all rights reserved

Copyright, 1918, by P. F. Collier and son company
copyright, 1919, by the pictorial review company

Printed in the United states
at
the country life press, garden city, N. Y.

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To M. L. K.

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GENTLE JULIA

“Rising to the point of order, this one said that since the morgue was not yet established as the central monument and inspiration of our settlement, and true philosophy was as well expounded in the convivial manner as in the miserable, he claimed for himself, not the license, but the right, to sing a ballad, if he chose, upon even so solemn a matter as the misuse of the town pump by witches.”

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GENTLE JULIA

CHAPTER ONE

Superciliousness is not safe after all, because a person who forms the habit of wearing it may some day find his lower lip grown permanently projected beyond the upper, so that he can’t get it back, and must go through life looking like the King of Spain.  This was once foretold as a probable culmination of Florence Atwater’s still plastic profile, if Florence didn’t change her way of thinking; and upon Florence’s remarking dreamily that the King of Spain was an awf’ly han’some man, her mother retorted:  “But not for a girl!” She meant, of course, that a girl who looked too much like the King of Spain would not be handsome, but her daughter decided to misunderstand her.

“Why, mamma, he’s my Very Ideal!  I’d marry him to-morrow!”

Mrs. Atwater paused in her darning, and let the stocking collapse flaccidly into the work-basket in her lap.  “Not at barely thirteen, would you?” she said.  “It seems to me you’re just a shade too young to be marrying a man who’s already got a wife and several children.  Where did you pick up that ‘I’d-marry-him-to-morrow,’ Florence?”

“Oh, I hear that everywhere!” returned the damsel, lightly.  “Everybody says things like that.  I heard Aunt Julia say it.  I heard Kitty Silver say it.”