THE HEAD OF THE HOUSE OF COOMBE

BY

FRANCES HODGSON BURNETT

NEW YORK






CHAPTER I





The history of the circumstances about to be related began many
years ago--or so it seems in these days. It began, at least, years
before the world being rocked to and fro revealed in the pause
between each of its heavings some startling suggestion of a new
arrangement of its kaleidoscopic particles, and then immediately
a re-arrangement, and another and another until all belief in a
permanency of design seemed lost, and the inhabitants of the earth
waited, helplessly gazing at changing stars and colours in a degree
of mental chaos.

Its opening incidents may be dated from a period when people