Produced by Dave Morgan, Mary Meehan and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net Unlucky A Fragment of a Girl's Life BY CAROLINE AUSTIN Author of "Cousin Geoffrey and I," "Hugh Herbert's Inheritance," "Dorothy's Dilemma," &c. BLACKIE & SON LIMITED LONDON GLASGOW DUBLIN BOMBAY [Illustration: CHRIS IS BROUGHT BACK BY HIS FRIEND THE SERGEANT] CONTENTS. I. HELEN'S STEPMOTHER II. COUSIN MARY III. HELEN'S ESCAPADE IV. STRANGERS YET V. LONGFORD GRANGE VI. HAROLD VII. "IF I HAD BUT LOVED HER" UNLUCKY: A FRAGMENT OF A GIRL'S LIFE. CHAPTER I. HELEN'S STEPMOTHER. It must be allowed that Mrs. Desmond, with the best dispositions in the world towards children in general and her most perplexing little stepdaughter Helen in particular, was not very happy in her method of dealing with young people. Brought up herself by two maiden aunts on the old-fashioned repressive system, from which she had never consciously suffered, the children of to-day, with their eager, uncontrolled impulses, their passionate likes and dislikes, often fostered by their elders, and their too early developed individualities, were simply a painful enigma to her. That the fault lay in their training rather than in the young people themselves Mrs. Desmond was free to confess, and, during the long tranquil years of her maiden life, having never once been called upon to face the child-problem seriously, she had contented herself with gently regretting the lax discipline prevalent amongst the rising generation, and with wondering mildly, and not without a certain sense of quiet self-satisfaction, what would happen to the human race, when, in course of time, all the properly brought-up people were gathered to their fathers.