The Project Gutenberg EBook of How It All Came Round, by L. T. Meade

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Title: How It All Came Round

Author: L. T. Meade

Release Date: November 28, 2007 [EBook #23653]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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HOW IT ALL CAME ROUND

BY

MRS. L. T. MEADE

AUTHOR OF "GIRLS OF THE TRUE BLUE," "WILD KITTY,"
"A GIRL OF THE PEOPLE," ETC., ETC.

NEW YORK
HURST & COMPANY
PUBLISHERS

[Illustration: MRS. L. T. MEADE.]

CHAPTER I.

THE RICH CHARLOTTE.

The room had three occupants, two were men, the third a woman. The men
were middle-aged and gray-haired, the woman on the contrary was in the
prime of youth; she was finely made, and well proportioned. Her face was
perhaps rather too pale, but the eyes and brow were noble, and the
sensitive mouth showed indications of heart as well as intellect.

The girl, or rather young woman, for she was past five and twenty, sat
by the fire, a book on her knee. The two men had drawn chairs close to a
table. The elder of these men bore such an unmistakable likeness to the
girl, that even the most casual observer must have guessed the
relationship which existed between them. He was a handsome man,
handsomer even than his daughter, but the same individualities marked
both faces. While, however, in the woman all was a profound serenity and
calm, the man had some anxious lines round the mouth, and some
expression, now coming, now going, in the fine gray eyes, which
betokened a long-felt anxiety.

The other and younger man was shrewd-looking and commonplace; but a very
close observer of human nature might have said, "He may be commonplace,
but do not feel too certain; he simply possesses one of those faces
which express nothing, from which not the cleverest detective in
Scotland Yard could extract any secret."

He was a man with plenty to say, and much humor, and at the moment this
story opens he was laughing merrily and in a hea