Today | News | Books | Recipes Adventure | Science Fiction | Ghost stories | Poetry | Children | History The Belle of Bowling GreenThe Project Gutenberg eBook of The Belle of Bowling Green This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook. Title: The Belle of Bowling Green Author: Amelia E. Barr Illustrator: Walter H. Everett Release date: July 27, 2025 [eBook #76576] Language: English Original publication: NYC: A. L. Burt Company, 1904 Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/76576 Credits: Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive) *** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BELLE OF BOWLING GREEN *** [Illustration: "THEY RESTED ON THE BENCHES, AND MADE LITTLE CONFIDENCES, AND WERE VERY HAPPY."] The Belle of Bowling Green By AMELIA E. BARR Author of "The Bow of Orange Ribbon;" "The Maid of Maiden Lane," Etc. [Illustration: colophon] With Illustrations By WALTER H. EVERETT A. L. BURT COMPANY, PUBLISHERS, NEW YORK Copyright, 1904, BY DODD, MEAD & COMPANY _Published, October_ PRINTED IN NEW YORK, U. S. A. _To My Friend_ WARREN SNYDER _A Bookman and a Lover of Books_ _This Novel is Dedicated_ CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE I MONDAY'S DAUGHTERS 3 II THE SPRING OF LIFE 30 III A SWEETNESS MORE DESIRED THAN SPRING 61 IV INTRODUCES MR. ST. ANGE 81 V A CHAIN OF CAUSES 115 VI THE MIRACLE OF LOVE 149 VII THE INCIDENT OF MARRIAGE 194 VIII THE ROSE OF RENUNCIATION 226 IX THE REPROOF OF THE SWORD 252 X THE STAR OF PEACE 296 XI AFTERWARD 321 _Prologue_ O shades of respectable Vans! O Livingstons, Kennedys, Jays! Lend me your names to conjure with, And bring back the fine old days-- When the trade and wealth of the city Lay snugly the rivers between, And the homes of its merchant princes, Were built round the Bowling Green. Here's to the homes that are past! Here's to the men that have been! Here's to the heart of New York, That beats on the Bowling Green! Here's to the men who could meet Mockers and doubters, with smiles; And planning for centuries hence, Lay out their city by miles. It has spread far out to the North, It has spread to the East and the West, Though the men who saw it in dreams, Now sleep in old Trinity's breast. Here's to the homes that are past! Here's to the men that have been! Here's to the heart of New York, That beats on the Bowling Green! And here's to the maids of the past! (They were beautiful maids we know,) That strolled in the Battery Park, In the years of the Long Ago. And though maids of to-day are fair, (No lovelier ever have been) They are proud to be called by the names Of the Belles of the Bowling Green. Here's to the men of the past! Here's to the maids that have been! Here's to the heart of New York, That beats on the Bowling Green! _The Belle of Bowling Green_ [Illustration] CHAPTER ONE _Monday's Daughters_ Every city has some locality to which its heroic and civic memories especially cling; and this locality in the city of New York is the historic acre of the Bowling Green. With that spot it has been throughout its existence, in some way or other, unfailingly linked; and its mingled story of camp and court and domestic life ought to make the Bowling Green to the citizens of New York all that the Palladium was to the citizens of ancient Troy. For as the Palladium held in one hand a pike, and in the other hand a distaff and spindle, so also, the story of the Bowling Green is one of the pike and the distaff. It has felt the tread of fighting men, and the light feet of happy maidens; and though showing a front of cannon, has lain for nearly three centuries at the open seaward door of the city, like a green hearthstone of welcome. In the closing years of the eighteenth, and the early years of the nineteenth century, the Bowling Green was in a large measure surrounded by the stately homes of the most honourable and wealthy citizens; and though this class, before the war of 1812, had began to move slowly northward, it was some years later a very aristocratic quarter, especially favoured by the rich families of Dutch extraction, who, having dwelt for many generations somewhere around the Fort and the Bowling Green, were not easily induced to relinquish their homes in a locality so familiar and so dear to them. Thus for nearly one hundred and forty years there had been Bloommaerts living in the old Beaver Path, and in Bloommaert's Valley, or Broad Street, and when Judge Gerardus Bloommaert, in 1790, built himself a handsome dwelling, he desired no finer site for it than the Bowling Green. It was a lofty, roomy house of red brick, without extraneous ornament, but realising in its interior arrangements and furnishings the highest ideals of household comfort and elegance. Sapphira, his only daughter, a girl of eighteen years old, was, however, its chief charm and attraction. No painting on all its walls could rival her living beauty; and many a young citizen found the road to the Custom House the road of his desire. For was there not always the hope that he might catch a glimpse of the lovely Sapphira at the window of her home? Or meet her walking on the Mall, or the Battery, and perhaps, if very fortunate, get a smile or a word from her in passing. All knew that they could give themselves good reasons for their devotions; they did not bow to an unworthy idol. Sapphira Bloommaert had to perfection every mystery and beauty of the flesh--dark, lambent eyes, hardly more lambent than the luminous face lighted up by the spirit behind it; nut-brown hair, with brows and long eyelashes of a still darker shade; a vivid complexion; an exquisite mouth; a tall, erect, slender form with a rather proud carriage, and movements that were naturally of superb dignity: "the airs of a queen," as her cousin Annette said. But Sapphira had no consciousness in this attitude; it was as natural as breathing to her; and was the result of a perfectly harmonious physical and moral beauty, developed under circumstances of love and happiness. All her life days had been full of content; she looked as if she had been born smiling. This was exactly what her grandmother Bloommaert said to her one morning, and that with some irritation; for the elder woman was anxious about many people and many things, and Sapphira's expression of pleasant contentment was not the kind of sympathy that worry finds soothing. "In trouble is the city, Sapphira, and over that bit of hair-work you sit smiling, as if in Paradise we were. I think, indeed, you were born smiling." "The time of tears is not yet, g |