Old New York: False Dawn, The Old Maid, The Spark, New Year’s Day. Edith Wharton

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Cover

Half-Title Page

      Old New York

Title Page

      Old New York

      ~four novels~

      False Dawn • The Old Maid •

      The Spark • New Year’s Day

      Edith Wharton

      W

      Wisehouse Classics

Copyright

      Edith Wharton

      Old New York

      False Dawn • The Old Maid • The Spark • New Year’s Day

      W

      Wisehouse Classics

      © 2020 Wisehouse Publishing | Sweden

      All rights reserved without exception.

      ISBN 978-91-7637-848-9

Table of Contents

       Cover

       Half-Title Page

       Title Page

       Copyright

       Table of Contents

       Old New York: False Dawn

       ~Part I~

       I

       II

       III

       ~Part II~

       IV

       V

       VI

       VII

       VIII

       IX

       Old New York: The Old Maid

       ~Part I~

       I

       II

       III

       IV

       V

       ~Part II~

       VI

       VII

       VIII

       IX

       X

       XI

       Old New York: The Spark

       I

       II

       III

       IV

       V

       Old New York: New Year’s Day

       I

       II

       III

       IV

       V

       VI

       VII

Old New York:

       False Dawn

      (The ‘Forties.)

      D. Appleton & Company, 1924

~Part I~

      I

      Hay, verbena and mignonette scented the languid July day. Large strawberries, crimsoning through sprigs of mint, floated in a bowl of pale yellow cup on the verandah table: an old Georgian bowl, with complex reflections on polygonal flanks, engraved with the Raycie arms between lions’ heads. Now and again the gentlemen, warned by a menacing hum, slapped their cheeks, their brows or their bald crowns; but they did so as furtively as possible, for Mr. Halston Raycie, on whose verandah they sat, would not admit that there were mosquitoes at High Point.

      The strawberries came from Mr. Raycie’s kitchen garden; the Georgian bowl came from his great-grandfather (father of the Signer); the verandah was that of his country-house, which stood on a height above the Sound, at a convenient driving distance from his town house in Canal Street.

      “Another glass, Commodore,” said Mr. Raycie, shaking out a cambric handkerchief the size of a table-cloth, and applying a corner of it to his steaming brow.

      Mr. Jameson Ledgely smiled and took another glass. He was known as “the Commodore” among his intimates because of having been in the Navy in his youth, and having taken part,