The Project Gutenberg EBook of Lady Rose's Daughter, by Mrs. Humphry Ward

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Title: Lady Rose's Daughter

Author: Mrs. Humphry Ward

Release Date: October 18, 2004 [EBook #13782]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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[Illustration: See page 122
"AS THOUGH SHE LISTENED STILL TO WORDS IN HER EARS"]

Lady Rose's Daughter

A Novel

BY
MRS. HUMPHRY WARD
Author of "Eleanor" "Robert Elsmere" etc. etc.

ILLUSTRATED BY
HOWARD CHANDLER CHRISTY

1903

ILLUSTRATION
"AS THOUGH SHE LISTENED STILL TO WORDS IN HER EARS" . . . . _Frontispiece_

"LADY HENRY LISTENED EAGERLY" . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . _Facing p_. 30

"'INDEED I WILL!' CRIED SIR WILFRID, AND THEY WALKED ON". . . . . . . 52

"LADY HENRY GASPED. SHE FELL BACK INTO HER CHAIR" . . . . . . . . . . 100

"HE ENTERED UPON A MERRY SCENE" . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 242

"'FOR MY ROSE'S CHILD,' HE SAID, GENTLY". . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 254

"HER HANDS CLASPED IN FRONT OF HER" . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 356

"SHE FOUND HERSELF KNEELING BESIDE HIM" . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 480

LADY ROSE'S DAUGHTER

I

"Hullo! No!--Yes!--upon my soul, it _is_ Jacob! Why, Delafield, my dear
fellow, how are you?"

So saying--on a February evening a good many years ago--an elderly
gentleman in evening dress flung himself out of his cab, which had just
stopped before a house in Bruton Street, and hastily went to meet a
young man who was at the same moment stepping out of another hansom a
little farther down the pavement.

The pleasure in the older man's voice rang clear, and the younger met
him with an equal cordiality, expressed perhaps through a manner more
leisurely and restrained.

"So you _are_ home, Sir Wilfrid? You were announced, I saw. But I
thought Paris would have detained you a bit."

"Paris? Not I! Half the people I ever knew there are dead, and the rest
are uncivil. Well, and how are you getting on? Making your fortune, eh?"

And, slipping his arm inside the young man