Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Mary Meehan and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net THE SQUIRE'S DAUGHTER _Being the First Book in the Chronicles of the Clintons_ BY ARCHIBALD MARSHALL NEW YORK DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY 1920 Published October, 1912 by DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY TO ANSTEY GUTHRIE [Illustration: Archibald Marshall.] CONTENTS I A Court Ball II In the Bay of Biscay III The Clintons of Kencote IV Clintons Young and Old V Melbury Park VI A Good Long Talk VII The Rector VIII By the Lake IX The Question of Marriage X Town Versus Country XI A Wedding XII Food and Raiment XIII Ronald Mackenzie XIV The Plunge XV Bloomsbury XVI The Pursuit XVII The Contest XVIII After the Storm XIX The Whole House Upset XX Mrs. Clinton XXI Cicely's Return XXII The Life CHAPTER I A COURT BALL "I recollect the time," said the Squire, "when two women going to a ball were a big enough load for any carriage. You may say what you like about crinolines, but I've seen some very pretty women in them in my time." There were three people in the carriage passing slowly up the Mall in the string, with little jerks and progressions. They were the Squire himself, Mrs. Clinton, and Cicely, and they were on their way to a Court Ball. The Squire, big, florid, his reddish beard touched with grey falling over the red and gold of his Deputy-Lieutenant's uniform, sat back comfortably beside his wife, who was dressed in pale lavender silk, with diamonds in her smooth, grey-yellow hair. She was short and rather plump. Her grey eyes, looking out on the violet of the night sky, the trees, and the crowd of hilarious onlookers who had not been invited to Buckingham Palace, had a patient and slightly wistful expression. She had not spoken since the carriage had left the quiet hotel in which they were staying for their fortnight in London. Cicely sat on the back seat of the carriage. On such an occasion as this she might have been expected to be accorded the feminine privilege of sitting at the side of her mother, but it had not occurred to the Squire to offer it to her. She was a pretty girl, twenty-two years of age, with a fair skin and abundant brown hair. She was dressed in costly white satin, her gown simply cut. As she had stood before her glass, while her mother's maid had held for her her light evening cloak, her beautiful neck and shoulders had seemed warmly flushed by contrast with the dead pallor of the satin. She also had hardly spoken since they had driven off from their hotel, which was so quiet and private that it was hardly like an hotel, and where some of the servants had stood in the hall to see them get into their carriage, just as they might have done at home at Kencote.