WILLOUGHBY CLAIM***


E-text prepared by Roger Frank and the Project Gutenberg Online
Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net)



A Special Limited Edition

IN CONNECTION WITH THE De WILLOUGHBY CLAIM

by

FRANCES HODGSON BURNETT

Author of
"A Lady of Quality," "Little Lord Fauntleroy," Etc.







The People's Library
Issued Monthly
By _The American News Company_

New York
The American News Company
Publishers' Agents
39-41 Chambers Street

Copyright, 1899
by Charles Scribner's Sons
All rights reserved

The owners of the copyright of this volume sanction the issue of
this edition as a paper-covered book, to be sold at fifty cents;
but, while not wishing to interfere with any purchaser binding his
own copy, they do not sanction placing on the market any volumes of
this edition bound in any other form.






In Connection with
The De Willoughby Claim

CHAPTER I


High noon at Talbot's Cross-roads, with the mercury standing at
ninety-eight in the shade--though there was not much