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Title: The Innocent Adventuress

Author: Mary Hastings Bradley

Release Date: June 30, 2009 [EBook #29278]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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THE INNOCENT ADVENTURESS

BY MARY HASTINGS BRADLEY

AUTHOR OF "THE FORTIETH DOOR," "THE PALACE OF DARKENED WINDOWS," "THE
WINE OF ASTONISHMENT," "THE SPLENDID CHANCE," ETC.

[Illustration: D. A. & Co., INTER FOLIA FRUCTIS]

D. APPLETON AND COMPANY
NEW YORK LONDON
1921

COPYRIGHT, 1921, BY
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY

Copyright, 1920, by The McCall Co., Inc.
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

TO MY SISTER

SYLVIA CORWIN FRANCISCO

CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE
I. THE EAVESDROPPER 7
II. UNDISCOVERED COUNTRY 21
III. LUNCHEON AT THE LODGE 47
IV. RI-RI SINGS AGAIN 67
V. BETWEEN DANCES 88
VI. TWO--AND A MOUNTAIN 106
VII. JOHNNY BECOMES INEVITABLE 127
VIII. JOHNNY BECOMES EXPLICIT 143
IX. MRS. BLAIR REGRETS 157
X. FANTASY 173
XI. MORNING LIGHT 204
XII. JOURNEY'S END 235

THE INNOCENT ADVENTURESS

CHAPTER I

THE EAVESDROPPER

Maria Angelina was eavesdropping. Not upon her sister Lucia and Paolo
Tosti whom she had been assigned to chaperon by reading a book to
herself in the adjoining room--no, they were safely busy with piano and
violin, and she was heartily bored, anyway, with their inanities. Voices
from another direction had pricked her to alertness.

Maria Angelina was in the corner room of the Palazzo Santonini, a dim
and beautiful old library with faded furnishings whose west arch of
doorway looked into the pretentious reception room where the fiances
were amusing themselves with their music and their