A Damsel in Distress

Purchase one of 1st World Library's Classic Books and help support our free internet library of downloadable eBooks. 1st World Library-Literary Society is a non-profit educational organization. Visit us online at www.1stWorldLibrary.ORG - - Inasmuch as the scene of this story is that historic pile Belpher Castle in the county of Hampshire it would be an agreeable task to open it with a leisurely descrip-tion of the place followed by some notes on the history of the Earls of Marshmoreton who have owned it since the fifteenth century. Unfortunately in these days of rush and hurry a novelist works at a disadvan-tage. He must leap into the middle of his tale with as little delay as he would employ in boarding a moving tramcar. He must get off the mark with the smooth swiftness of a jack-rabbit surprised while lunching. Otherwise people throw him aside and go out to picture palaces. I may briefly remark that the present Lord Marshmore-ton is a widower of some forty-eight years: that he has two children-a son Percy Wilbraham Marsh Lord Belpher who is on the brink of his twenty-first birth-day and a daughter Lady Patricia Maud Marsh who is just twenty: that the chatelaine of the castle is Lady Caroline Byng Lord Marshmoreton's sister who married the very wealthy colliery owner Clifford Byng a few years before his death (which unkind people say she hastened): and that she has a step-son Reginald. Give me time to mention these few facts and I am done. On the glorious past of the Marshmoretons I will not even touch.