Chapter I: Front Matter

A DAUGHTER OF HETH

BY

WILLIAM BLACK

"If Jacob take a wife of the daughters of Heth, such as these which are of the daughters of the land, what good shall my life do me?"

_NEW AND REVISED EDITION_

NEW YORK: HARPER AND BROTHERS
1892

LONDON:
PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED;
STAMFORD STREET AND CHARING CROSS.

_PREFATORY NOTE._

_I have long wished to place before the public an edition of these novels of mine which should have at least the mechanical merit of uniformity. Also I had in contemplation, especially with regard to the earlier volumes, a large measure of re-shaping and re-writing; so that books composed amid stress and turmoil might gain something from the comparative leisure of later years. But this wider project I found impracticable. For one thing, it would have taken a few lifetimes to accomplish; then again, it was just possible that a certain freshness and rudeness of touch might have been ill replaced by a nicer precision. Nevertheless in many minor ways these pages have now been thoroughly revised; verbal and other inaccuracies have been corrected; crooked places have been made straight; conversations condensed; while a considerable number of those little playfulnesses which the printer somehow mysteriously manages, when one is not watching, to introduce into the text, have been removed. It only remains for me, in submitting this new series to the reading public, to express my deep sense of gratitude for the constant favour and kindness I have already and for so long a time experienced at their hands._

_W. B._

_London, January, 1892._

CONTENTS.

CHAP.

I.--Coquette's Arrival
II.--Coquette's Religion
III.--A Penitent
IV.--An unexpected Visitor
V.--Coquette's Music
VI.--Earlshope
VII.--The Crucifix
VIII.--Saltcoats
IX.--Coquette's Promise
X.--The Schoolmaster
XI.--A Meeting on the Moor
XII.--Coquette's Conquests
XIII.--A Horoscope
XIV.--Sir Peter and Lady Drum
XV.--A dangerous Adventure
XVI.--Coquette leaves Airlie
XVII.--Lochfyne
XVIII.--Coquette sails to the North
XIX.--Coquette discourses
XX.--Letters from Airlie
XXI.--Coquette is troubled
XXII.--On the Seashore
XXIII.--Coquette begins to fear
XXIV.--Touching certain Problems
XXV.--Coquette's Presentiments
XXVI.--Confession at last
XXVII.--Loin de France
XXVIII.--After many Days
XXIV.--Coquette's Dreams
XXX.--On the Way
XXXI.--An awful Visitor
XXXII.--In the Springtime
XXXIII.--Over the Moor
XXXIV.--Lord Earlshope's Cave
XXXV.--The Nemesis of Love
XXXVI.--The Last Day At Airlie
XXXVII.--Coquette in Town
XXXVIII.--All about Kelvin-side
XXXIX.--Lady Drum's Dinner-party
XL.--The Rosebud
XLI.--The Whaup becomes anxious
XLII.--At the Theatre
XLIII.--Coquette is told
XLIV.--Coquette's Forebodings
XLV.--A Legend of Earlshope
XLVI.--The Minister's Publisher
XLVII.--An Apparition
XLVIII.--Earlshope is Invaded
XLIX.--Coquette's Song
L.--Coquette forsakes her Friends
LI.--A Secret of the Sea
LII.--Consent
LIII.--The Pale Bride
LIV.--Husband and Wife
LV.--The Churchyard on the Moor

A DAUGHTER OF HETH