'Lady Connie' is a romantic novel written by Mrs. Humphry Ward. Our protagonist, Lady Connie, is a wealthy 20-year-old orphan, who stands on the brink of inheriting her vast fortune at the young age of 25. But her path to riches is fraught with obstacles, as her mother's brother, the struggling Professor Hooper of Oxford, has been appointed her guardian. The Hooper household, filled with envy and resentment, is a far cry from the aristocratic circles in which Connie was raised. Fluent in Italian and French, and well-connected among the upper echelons of society, Connie is blind to the jealousy that surrounds her. As she navigates the treacherous waters of Oxford society, Connie is courted by a host of eligible bachelors, from the wealthy and arrogant to the decent but impoverished. But with so many suitors vying for her hand, the question remains: whom will she ultimately choose to marry?
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Lady Connie by Humphry Ward CHAPTER I "Well, now we've done all we can, and all I mean to do," said Alice Hooper, with a pettish accent of fatigue. "Everything's perfectly comfortable, and if she doesn't like it, we can't help it. I don't know why we make such a fuss." The speaker threw herself with a gesture of fatigue into a dilapidated basket-chair that offered itself. It was a spring day, and the windows of the old schoolroom in which she and her sister were sitting were open to a back garden, untidily kept, but full of fruit-trees just coming into blossom. Through their twinkling buds and interlacing branches could be seen grey college walls--part of the famous garden front of St. Cyprian's College, Oxford. There seemed to be a slight bluish mist over the garden and the building, a mist starred with patches of white and dazzlingly green leaf. And, above all, there was an evening sky, peaceful and luminous, from which a light wind blew towards the two girls sitting by the open window. One, the elder, had a face like a Watteau sketch, with black velvety eyes, hair drawn back from a white forehead, delicate little mouth, with sharp indentations at the corners, and a small chin. The other was much more solidly built--a girl of seventeen, in a plump phase, which however an intelligent eye would have read as not likely to last; a complexion of red and brown tanned by exercise; an expression in her clear eyes which was alternately frank and ironic; and an inconvenient mass of golden brown hair. We are delighted to publish this classic book as part of our extensive Classic Library collection. Many of the books in our collection have been out of print for decades, and therefore have not been accessible to the general public. The aim of our publishing program is to facilitate rapid access to this vast reservoir of literature, and our view is that this is a significant literary work, which deserves to be brought back into print after many decades. The contents of the vast majority of titles in the Classic Library have been scanned from the original works. To ensure a high quality product, each title has been meticulously hand curated by our staff. Our philosophy has been guided by a desire to provide the reader with a book that is as close as possible to ownership of the original work. We hope that you will enjoy this wonderful classic work, and that for you it becomes an enriching experience.
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