1. Page scan source: http://www.archive.org/details/confessionsayou00marsgoog Confessions of a Young Lady By The Same Author CURIOS THE MAGNETIC GIRL ADA VERNHAM, ACTRESS Mrs MUSGRAVE AND HER HUSBAND Miss ARNOTT'S MARRIAGE * * * * * John Long, Publisher, London Confessions of a Young Lady _Her Doings and Misdoings_ By Richard Marsh Author of "The Beetle," etc. London John Long 13 & 14 Norris Street, Haymarket [_All Rights Reserved_] _First Published in_ 1905 CONTENTS I. A Wonderful Girl. II. Cupid's Messenger. III. The Ogre. IV. The Handwriting. V. The People's Stock Exchange. VI. Breaking the Ice. VII. A Girl Who Couldn't. VIII. The Princess Margaretta. IX. The End of His Holiday. X. The Girl and the Boy. XI. A Mutual Affinity. XII. Magical Music. XIII. A Runaway Wife. Confessions of a Young Lady I A WONDERFUL GIRL As a small girl I must have been a curiosity. At least I hope so. Because if I was only an average child what a time parents, and guardians, and schoolmistresses, and those sort of persons, must have of it. To this hour I am a creature of impulse. But then--! I did a thing; started to regret it when it was about half done; and if I ever thought at all about the advisability of doing it, it was certainly only when everything was over. Take the case of my very fleeting association with Bradford's Royal Theatre. So far as I can fix it, at the time I must have been about twelve. A small, elf-like creature, with eyes which were ever so much too big for my face, and a mass of unruly, very dark brown, hair. Some people have told me that then it was black. But I doubt it. For there are those who tell me that it is black now, which I have the very best of reasons for knowing it is not. At that school they called me The Witch; in allusion, I believe, not only to my personal appearance but also to my uncanny goings-on.