Produced by Hilary Caws-Elwitt and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net ROBIN BY FRANCES HODGSON BURNETT AUTHOR OF "THE SHUTTLE" "THE SECRET GARDEN" "THE HEAD OF THE HOUSE OF COOMBE" ETC. NEW YORK FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY PUBLISHERS COPYRIGHT, 1922, BY FRANCES HODGSON BURNETT COPYRIGHT, 1921, 1922, BY THE INTERNATIONAL MAGAZINE COMPANY ALL RIGHTS RESERVED PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA THE YEARS BEFORE Outline Arranged by Hamilton Williamson from _THE HEAD OF THE HOUSE OF COOMBE_ In the years when Victorian standards and ideals began to dance an increasingly rapid jig before amazed lookers-on, who presently found themselves dancing as madly as the rest--in these years, there lived in Mayfair, in a slice of a house, Robert Gareth-Lawless and his lovely young wife. So light and airy was she to earthly vision and so diaphanous the texture of her mentality that she was known as "Feather." The slice of a house between two comparatively stately mansions in the "right street" was a rash venture of the honeymoon. Robert--well born, irresponsible, without resources--evolved a carefully detailed method of living upon nothing whatever, of keeping out of the way of duns, and telling lies with aptness and outward gaiety. But a year of giving smart little dinners and going to smart big dinners ended in a condition somewhat akin to the feat of balancing oneself on the edge of a sword. Then Robin was born. She was an intruder and a calamity, of course. That a Feather should become a parent gave rise to much wit of light weight when Robin was exhibited in the form of a bundle of lace. It was the Head of the House of Coombe who asked: "What will you do with her?" "Do?" Feather repeated. "What is it people 'do' with babies? I don't know. I wouldn't touch her for the world. She frightens me." Coombe said: "She is staring at me. There is antipathy in her gaze." He stared back unwaveringly also, but with a sort of cold interest. "The Head of the House of Coombe" was not a title to be found in Burke or Debrett. It was a fine irony of the Head's own. The peerage recorded him as a marquis and added several lesser attendant titles. To be born the Head of the House is a weighty and awe-inspiring thing--one is called upon to be an example. "I am not sure what I am an example of--or to," he said, on one occasion, in his light, rather cold and detached way, "which is why I at times regard myself in that capacity with a slightly ribald lightness." A reckless young woman once asked him: "Are you as wicked as people say you are?" "I really don't know. It is so difficult to decide," he answered. "Perhaps I am as wicked as I know how to be. And I may have painful limitations or I may not."