L T Meade

One day in late September I received the following letter from my lawyer: - "My Dear Bell, - "I shall esteem it a favour if you can make it convenient to call upon me at ten o'clock to-morrow morning on a matter of extreme privacy." At the appointed hour I was shown into Mr. Edgcombe's private room. I had known him for years-we were, in fact, old friends-and I was startled now by the look of worry, not to say anxiety, on his usually serene features

"Nora, Nora Where are you?" called a clear, girlish voice, and Cara Burt dashed headlong into a pretty bedroom all draped in white, where a tall girl was standing by an open window. "Nora " she cried, "what are you doing up in your room at this hour, when we are all busy in the garden preparing our tableaux? Mrs Hazlitt says that she herself will recite 'A Dream of Fair Women, ' and by unanimous consent you are to be Helen of Troy. Did any one ever suit the part so well? 'Divinely tall, and most divinely fair.