The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Invader, by Margaret L. Woods

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Title: The Invader
A Novel

Author: Margaret L. Woods

Release Date: February 23, 2009 [EBook #28162]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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The Invader

A NOVEL

By

Margaret L. Woods

New York and London

Harper & Brothers Publishers

1907

Copyright, 1907, by HARPER & BROTHERS.

Published May, 1907.

* * * * *

TO

Hilda Greaves

AND THE DUMB COMPANIONS OF TAN-YR-ALLT
THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED BY THEIR
GRATEFUL AND AFFECTIONATE
FRIEND

* * * * *

THE INVADER

CHAPTER I

Dinner was over and the ladies had just risen, when the Professor had
begged to introduce them to the new-comer on his walls. The Invader, it
might almost have been called, this full-length, life-size portrait,
which, in the illumination of a lamp turned full upon it, seemed to take
possession of the small room, to dominate at the end of the polished-oak
table, where the light of shaded candles fell on old blue plates, old
Venetian glass, a bit of old Italian brocade, and chrysanthemums in a
china bowl coveted by collectors. Every detail spoke of the
connoisseurship, the refined and personal taste characteristic of Oxford
in the eighties. The authority on art put up his eye-glasses and
fingered his tiny forked beard uneasily.

"There's no doubt it's a good thing, Fletcher," he said, presently--"really
quite good. But it's too like Romney to be Raeburn, and too like Raeburn to
be Romney. You ought to be able to find out the painter, if, as you say,
it's a po