"The greatest social literary hit of the year."--_Chicago Tribune._

"A screaming success."--_Saturday Review._

"Clever and piquant sketches--refreshing spirit and
vivacity."--_Harper's Magazine._

A ROMANTIC YOUNG LADY.

1 vol. 12mo. $1.50.

Mr. Grant's latest work, and in many respects his best.

_Sold by booksellers. Sent, postpaid, on receipt of price by the
publishers_,

=TICKNOR & COMPANY, BOSTON.=

* * * * *

A ROMANTIC YOUNG LADY

by

ROBERT GRANT

Author of
"The Confessions of a Frivolous Girl,"
"An Average Man,"
"The Knave of Hearts," Etc.

Boston
Ticknor and Company
1886

Copyright, 1886,
by Ticknor and Company.
All rights reserved.

University Press:
John Wilson and Son, Cambridge.

CONTENTS

BOOK PAGE
I. Innocence. 7
II. Sophistication. 71
III. (Un)common Sense. 221

BOOK I.

INNOCENCE.

I.

My mother died in giving me birth. My father was a very rich man, a
railway magnate, so called, absorbed in great business enterprises. Thus
it happened that I was brought up between two fires,--my father's
sister, Aunt Agnes; and my mother's sister, Aunt Helen.

Aunt Agnes was prim but cultivated. She wrote for reviews and wore
eye-glasses, and her library table was habitually littered with
pamphlets and tomes. On the other hand, Aunt Helen was a neat, dapper
little woman, who lived in a gem of a house and delighted in bric-a-brac
and entertaining. They were both spinsters. Each of them passed one
evening in every week with me. On Tuesdays I dined with Aunt Agnes, and
on Fridays with Aunt Helen. Thus I was alone only two evenings out of
seven, for on Sundays my father did not go to the Club.

From the age of ten until I was fifteen I attended a private school. I
proved ambitious and quick at my books. Aunt Helen was anxious that I
should be well grounded in the modern languages, while Aunt Agnes wished
me to pursue what she styled "serious" studies. In my efforts to please
them both I broke down in health. My father was the first to observe my
pallid cheeks, and at the advice of a physician I was taken away from
school. For nearly a year I was idle, save that I read at random in my
father's library. Then my aunts for once put their heads together and
insisted upon my having a go