The Duke and the Damsel Author:Richard Marsh General Books publication date: 2009 Original publication date: 1897 Original Publisher: C. Arthur Pearson Ltd. Notes: This is a black and white OCR reprint of the original. It has no illustrations and there may be typos or missing text. When you buy the General Books edition of this book you get free trial access to Million-Books.com where ... more »you can select from more than a million books for free. Excerpt: THE DUKE AND THE DAMSEL CHAPTER I WHEN a mother, being a widow, has just taken her two daughters from a convent school, and has attired them, from top to toe, in the latest fashions, and has a heart bursting with anxiety to get them married and off her Hands in the shortest possible space of time, it is only natural that such a harassed parent should endeavour to save money whenever a legitimate opportunity to practise economy offers -- which explains why Mrs. General Delancy-Fyfart had not engaged a lit-salon or a coup/ lit toilette, or other of those conveniences which the Paris-Lyon-Mediterranee Railway has to offer to the luxurious traveller, but, totally ignoring the existence of the International Sleeping Car Company, had decided to travel in an ordinary first-class carriage of an ordinary train, with the common herd. But ere she reached Nice she realised that thedecision was one which she might have serious and even lasting cause for regretting. The unsatisfactory phase of the situation developed itself like this : -- There were eight persons in the carriage. Mrs. General Delancy-Fyfart had a corner seat facing the engine ; next to her was Nora ; and in front of her, in the opposite corner, was Mabel. Next to Mabel was an individual whom, since she bade fair to be bottled up with him for nearly seven hundred miles, Mrs. General Delancy-Fyfart deemed appeared sufficiently respectable to render it worth her while to condescend to notice his existence ; hence all these tears. You never can tell what a man is by what he looks like. This man was long -...« less