[Illustration] _The_ Green Mirror A QUIET STORY BY HUGH WALPOLE _NEW YORK_ GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY COPYRIGHT, 1917, BY GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY THE GREEN MIRROR PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA TO DOROTHY WHO FIRST INTRODUCED ME TO KATHERINE “_There’s the feather bed element here brother, ach! and not only that! There’s an attraction here—here you have the end of the world, an anchorage, a quiet haven, the navel of the earth, the three fishes that are the foundation of the world, the essence of pancakes, of savoury fish-pies, of the evening samovar, of soft sighs and warm shawls, and hot stoves to sleep on—as snug as though you were dead, and yet you’re alive—the advantages of both at once._” DOSTOEFFSKY. MY DEAR DOROTHY, As I think you know, this book was finished in the month of August, 1914. I did not look at it again until I revised it during my convalescence after an illness in the autumn of 1915. We are now in a world very different from that with which this story deals, and it must, I am afraid, appear slow in development and uneventful in movement, belonging, in style and method and subject, to a day that seems to us already old-fashioned. But I will frankly confess that I have too warm a personal affection for Katherine, Philip, Henry and Millicent to be able to destroy utterly the signs and traditions of their existence, nor can I feel my book to be quite old-fashioned when the love of England, which I have tried to make the text of it, has in many of us survived so triumphantly changes and catastrophes and victories that have shaken into ruin almost every other faith we held. Let this be my excuse for giving you, with my constant affection, this uneventful story. Yours always, HUGH WALPOLE. PETROGRAD, May 11th, 1917. CONTENTS