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Charlotte M. Yonge was one of the most prodigious novelists of the 19th century, and though many of her books have long since gone out of print, some of her works are still read around the world today, including The Heir of Redclyffe, Heartsease and The Daisy Chain.

Chapter 1 - RIGHTED

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PREFACE

If a book by an author who must call herself a veteran should be taken up by readers of a younger generation, they are begged to consider the first few chapters as a sort of prologue, introduced for the sake of those of elder years, who were kind enough to be interested in the domestic politics of the Mohuns and the Underwoods.

Continuations are proverbially failures, and yet it is perhaps a consequence of the writer's realization of characters that some seem as if they could not be parted with, and must be carried on in the mind, and not only have their after-fates described, but their minds and opinions under the modifications of advancing years and altered circumstances.

Turner and other artists have been known literally to see colours in absolutely different hues as they grew older, and so no doubt it is with thinkers. The outlines may be the same, the tints are insensibly modified and altered, and the effect thus far changed.

Thus it is with the writers of fiction. The young write in full sympathy with, as well as for, the young, they have a pensive satisfaction in feeling and depicting the full pathos of a tragedy, and on the other hand they delight in their own mirth, and fully share it with the beings of their imagination, or they work out great questions with the unhesitating decision of their youth.

But those who write in elder years look on at their young people, not with inner sympathy but from the outside. Their affections and comprehension are with the fathers, mothers, and aunts; they dread, rather than seek, piteous scenes, and they have learnt that there are two sides to a question, that there are many stages in human life, and that the success or failure of early enthusiasm leaves a good deal more yet to come.

Thus the vivid fancy passes away, which the young are carried along with, and the older feel refreshed by; there is still a sense of experience, and a pleasure in tracing the perspective from another point of sight, where what was once distant has become near at hand, the earnest of many a day-dream has been gained, and more than one ideal has been tried, and merits and demerits have become apparent.

And thus it is hoped that the Long Vacation may not be devoid of interest for readers who have sympathized in early days with Beechcroft, Stoneborough, and Vale Leston, when they were peopled with the outcome of a youthful mind, and that they may be ready to look with interest on the perplexities and successes attending on the matured characters in after years.

If they will feel as if they were on a visit to friends grown older, with their children about them, and if the young will forgive the seeing with elder eyes, and observing instead of participating, that is all the veteran author would ask.

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I was sitting in the Presidential Suite of The Pierre, wearing a Vera Wang gown worth more than most people earn in a decade. It was supposed to be the wedding of the century, the final move to merge two of Manhattan's most powerful empires. Then my phone buzzed. It was an Instagram Story from my fiancé, Jameson. He was at Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris with a caption that read: "Fuck the chains. Chasing freedom." He hadn't just gotten cold feet; he had abandoned me at the altar to run across the world. My father didn't come in to comfort me. He burst through the door roaring about a lost acquisition deal, telling me the Holland Group would strip our family for parts if the ceremony didn't happen by noon. My stepmother wailed about us becoming the laughingstock of the Upper East Side. The Holland PR director even suggested I fake a "panic attack" to make myself look weak and sympathetic to save their stock price. Then Jameson’s sleazy cousin, Pierce, walked in with a lopsided grin, offering to "step in" and marry me just to get his hands on my assets. I looked at them and realized I wasn't a daughter or a bride to anyone in that room. I was a failed asset, a bouncing check, a girl whose own father told her to go to Paris and "beg" the man who had just publicly humiliated her. The girl who wanted to be loved died in that mirror. I realized that if I was going to be sold to save a merger, I was going to sell myself to the one who actually controlled the money. I marched past my parents and walked straight into the VIP holding room. I looked the most powerful man in the room—Jameson’s cold, ruthless uncle, Fletcher Holland—dead in the eye and threw the iPad on the table. "Jameson is gone," I said, my voice as hard as stone. "Marry me instead."

Chapters
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The Long Vacation
1

Chapter 1 - RIGHTED

29/11/2017

2

Chapter 2 - A CHAPTER OF RETROSPECT

29/11/2017

3

Chapter 3 - A CHAPTER OF TWADDLE

29/11/2017

4

Chapter 4 - DARBY AND JOAN

29/11/2017

5

Chapter 5 - SLUM, SEA, OR SEASON

29/11/2017

6

Chapter 6 - A HAPPY SPRITE

29/11/2017

7

Chapter 7 - ST. ANDREW'S ROCK

29/11/2017

8

Chapter 8 - THE HOPE OF VANDERKIST

29/11/2017

9

Chapter 9 - THE MOUSE-TRAP

29/11/2017

10

Chapter 10 - OUT BEYOND

29/11/2017

11

Chapter 11 - NOBLESSE OBLIGE

29/11/2017

12

Chapter 12 - HEROES AND HERO-WORSHIP

29/11/2017

13

Chapter 13 - THE LITTLE BUTTERFLY

29/11/2017

14

Chapter 14 - TWO SIDES OF A SHIELD AGAIN

29/11/2017

15

Chapter 15 - BUTTERFLY'S NECTAR

29/11/2017

16

Chapter 16 - A POOR FOREIGN WIDOW

29/11/2017

17

Chapter 17 - "SEE, THE CONQUERING HERO COMES"

29/11/2017

18

Chapter 18 - EXCLUDED

29/11/2017

19

Chapter 19 - THE EVIL STAR

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20

Chapter 20 - SHOP-DRESSING

29/11/2017

21

Chapter 21 - FRENCH LEAVE

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22

Chapter 22 - THE MASQUE

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23

Chapter 23 - THE REGATTA

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24

Chapter 24 - ILLUMINATIONS

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25

Chapter 25 - COUNSELS OF PATIENCE

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26

Chapter 26 - DESDICHADO

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27

Chapter 27 - THE SILENT STAR

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28

Chapter 28 - THE RED MANTLE

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29

Chapter 29 - ROCCA MARINA

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30

Chapter 30 - ROWENA AND HER RIVAL

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31

Chapter 31 - DREAMS AND NIGHTINGALES

29/11/2017

32

Chapter 32 - THE COLD SHOULDER

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33

Chapter 33 - THE TEST OF DAY-DREAMS

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34

Chapter 34 - A MISSIONARY WEDDING

29/11/2017

35

Chapter 35 - RIGHTED No.35

06/12/2017