Copyright, 1901, by Frederick A. Stokes Company

September, 1909


[** Transcriber's note: I have corrected a few obvious printers' errors.
Details are AFTER the text so as not to interrupt the flow of what was
intended to be an enjoyable read and not a scholarly work. **]




PART ONE




Chapter One


When Miss Fox-Seton descended from the twopenny bus as it drew up, she
gathered her trim tailor-made skirt about her with neatness and decorum,
being well used to getting in and out of twopenny buses and to making
her way across muddy London streets. A woman whose tailor-made suit must
last two or three years soon learns how to protect it from splashes, and
how to aid it to retain the freshness of its folds. During her trudging
about this morning in the wet, Emily Fox-Seton had been very careful,
and, in fact, was returning to Mortimer Street as unspotted as she had
left it. She had been thinking a good deal about her dress--this
particular faithful one which she had already worn through a