One evening, shortly before Christmas, in the days when our forefathers, being young, possessed the earth, -- in brief, in the year 1879, -- Mrs Garden came briskly into the drawing-room from Mr. Garden's study and said in her crisp, even voice to her six children, "Well, my dears, I have to tell you something".

Rome smiled, as she neatly swung out at the Grosvenor Gate.

A novel in four parts: Victorian, Fin-de-Siecle, Edwardian, Georgian