

E-text prepared by Louise Pryor, Jacqueline Jeremy, and the Project
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THE LOWEST RUNG

Together with The Hand on
the Latch, St. Luke's Summer
and The Understudy

by

MARY CHOLMONDELEY

Author of "Red Pottage"







London
John Murray, Albemarle Street, W.
1908

Copyright, 1908, in the
United States of America




    TO
    HOWARD STURGIS




CONTENTS

                              PAGE

    THE LOWEST RUNG             33

    THE HAND ON THE LATCH       82

    SAINT LUKE'S SUMMER        107

    THE UNDERSTUDY             156




PREFACE


I have been writing books for five-and-twenty years, novels of which I
believe myself to be the author, in spite of the fact that I have been
assured over and over again that they are not my own work. When I have
on several occasions ventured to claim them, I have seldom been
believed, which seems the more odd as, when others have claimed them,
they have been believed at once.