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Excerpt from At the World's Mercy Miss florence warden. The author of House on the Marsh is young and pretty - a dainty figure, supple, graceful, and very modest in her bearing and manner. The story of her life, says Joseph Hatton in the C/m'stian Union, may be briefly told. Her father was a stock-broker, and she and her only sister were born at Hanworth, near London. They were brought up as children in affluence and luxury, but just when they had finished their education their father failed in business, and they were thrown upon their own resources. 'we both, ' she said to my friend, obtained situations as governesses. I was in aclergy man's family. I had always felt a strong desire to write, and when the misfortune of our broken home came upon us I determined to persevere until I wrote something that the public would be anxious to read. My position as governess gave me all the leisure and opportunities necessary for the effort. I had read widely, my education had been comprehensive, and, as much of it had been obtained in France, I could speak French almost as well as English. My first success in the way of stories was the acceptance by the present Mr. Charles Dickens of a short story called King Combe for A 11 tfze Year Round. That was in 1877 or 1878; but before that I had had pub lished in the Live Stock journal my very first effort a poem entitled The Squire's Last Ride, for which I remember I received a guinea. But it was a hard and depressing struggle. I wrote story after story short novelettes - and sent them to different editors, but got them back unfailingly. Ibegan to tire of my life as a governess - its consistent dullness, imbit tered by constant failure with my pen - and I deter mined to go on the stage, not, however, relinquish ing my literary ambition. That was five years ago, and my sister joined the profession at the same time.' They are now both acting in Florence War den's play, founded on her story, and are likely to become as affluent as their father was when his finan cial failure compelled them to go forth and seek their fortunes. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.