The Shoulders of Atlas

A Novel

By
Mary E. Wilkins Freeman

Author of
"By the Light of the Soul" "The Debtor"
"Jerome" "A New England Nun" etc.

New York and London
Harper & Brothers Publishers
MCMVIII

Copyright, 1908, by the New York Herald Co.
All rights reserved.
Published June, 1908.



Chapter I


Henry Whitman was walking home from the shop in the April afternoon.
The spring was very early that year. The meadows were quite green,
and in the damp hollows the green assumed a violet tinge--sometimes
from violets themselves, sometimes from the shadows. The trees
already showed shadows as of a multitude of bird wings; the
peach-trees stood aloof in rosy nimbuses, and the cherry-trees were