Note: Images of the original pages are available through Internet Archive/American Libraries. See http://archive.org/details/pittowncoronetfa02will Project Gutenberg has the other two volumes of this work. Volume I: see http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/42167 Volume III: see http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/42169 THE PIT TOWN CORONET: A Family Mystery. by CHARLES J. WILLS, Author of "In the Land of the Lion and Sun," etc. In Three Volumes. VOL. II. Ward and Downey, 12, York Street, Covent Garden, London, W.C. 1888 [The right of translation is reserved, and the Dramatic Copyright protected.] Printed by Kelly and Co., Gate Street, Lincoln's Inn Fields, W.C.; and Middle Mill, Kingston-on-Thames. CONTENTS. CHAP. PAGE I.--A HORRIBLE SCANDAL 1 II.--AT THE PARSONAGE 27 III.--HOW THEY CAME HOME 51 IV.--THE RETURN OF THE WANDERER 73 V.--THE MISSES SLEEK DROP IN 94 VI.--THE SLEEKS IN ARCADIA 117 VII.--HAGGARD COMES INTO HIS OWN 138 VIII.--THE VICAR TRIES PUFFIN 167 IX.--MR. PUFFIN HUNTS A BUTTERFLY 190 X.--A RATHER SHADY CHARACTER 213 XI.--ESAU WAS THE FIRSTBORN 236 XII.--IN ST. JOHN'S WOOD 276 THE PIT TOWN CORONET. CHAPTER I. A HORRIBLE SCANDAL. Dull as the life of the little château on the lake necessarily was, yet Georgie Haggard did not suffer from _ennui_. She seemed in fact to rather revel in the quietude, and to luxuriate in the seclusion of the Swiss villa, after the fatigues and excitements of a busy London season and the turmoil and the incidental worries which must always attend an extended foreign tour, even when it is taken for pleasure, and when expense is no object. The position of the villa was sufficiently romantic; behind it were the snow-covered Alps, Mont Blanc always clearly visible; and all in front stretched the lake with its glorious blue water of that intense azure which is only seen on this Geneva lake. Why it should be so very blue is, and always will be, a mystery; of course it has been explained by scientific people in various manners satisfactory to themselves, but the fact remains that the lake is of a deeper blue than any other European water, and strange to say the intense colour is just as apparent in the shallowest parts. One may row over a place not more than a yard deep, where the bottom is clearly perceptible, but the waters are as blue as ever, a deep unnatural ultramarine blue, a blue which is seen only here and in the choicest specimens of the Oriental turquoise.