The Story of Ivy
The Story of Ivy by Marie Belloc Lowndes, available in Auren as a public-domain ebook in the United States.
Opening
“Tell me something about the Lextons, Mary. Where did you pick them up?” asked Lady Flora Desmond of her hostess, Mrs. Hampton. “As I looked at Mrs. Lexton during dinner, I thought I had never seen a prettier face. When I was a child, your little friend would have been what people then called a professional beauty.”
“She certainly is very pretty, and a regular honeypot! Look at her now, with Miles Rushworth?”
The speaker nodded towards the wide-open French window of the high-ceilinged, oval eighteenth-century sitting-room. She and two other women were sitting there together after dinner, on the Saturday evening of what Mrs. Hampton thought promised to be a very successful weekend party.
Edition source: Standard Ebooks
