My Lady Caprice

by Jeffrey Farnol




I
TREASURE TROVE

I sat fishing. I had not caught anything, of course - I rarely do,
nor am I fond of fishing in the very smallest degree, but I fished
assiduously all the same, because circumstances demanded it.

It had all come about through Lady Warburton, Lisbeth's maternal aunt.
Who Lisbeth is you will learn if you trouble to read these veracious
narratives - suffice it for the present that she has been an orphan
from her youth up, with no living relative save her married sister
Julia and her Aunt (with a capital A) - the Lady Warburton aforesaid.

Lady Warburton is small and somewhat bony, with a sharp chin and a
sharper nose, and invariably uses lorgnette; also, she is possessed
of much worldly goods.

Precisely a week ago Lady Warburton had requested me to call upon
her - had regarded me with a curious exactitude through her
lorgnette, and gently though firmly (Lady Warburton is always firm)
had suggested that Elizabeth, though a dear child, was young and
inclined to be a little self-willed. That she (Lady Warburton) was
of opinion that Elizabeth had mistaken the friendship which had