



Produced by Clare Graham & Marc D'Hooghe at
http://www.freeliterature.org (Images generously made
available by the Internet Archive.)





RED AS A ROSE IS SHE.


A Novel.


BY

RHODA BROUGHTON,

AUTHOR OF "COMETH UP AS A FLOWER," "GOOD-BYE, SWEETHEART!"
"SECOND THOUGHTS," ETC.


_ELEVENTH EDITION._


LONDON:

RICHARD BENTLEY AND SON,

Publishers in Ordinary to Her Majesty the Queen.

1887.


[Illustration: Frontispiece: ESTHER CRAVEN.
ELISH LA MONTI. PINX.  JOSEPH BROWN. SC.]


RED AS A ROSE IS SHE.




CHAPTER I.


Have you ever been to Wales? I do not ask this question of any one in
particular; I merely address it to the universal British public, or,
rather, to such member or members of the same as shall be wise enough
to sit down and read the ensuing true and moving love story--true as
the loves of wicked Abelard and Heloise, moving as those of good Paul
and Virginia. Probably those wise ones will be very few; numerable
by tens, or even units: they will, I may very safely aver, not form
the bulk of the nation. However high may be my estimate of my own
powers of narration, however amply Providence may have gifted me with
self-appreciation, I may be sure of that, seeing that the only books
I know of which enjoy so wide a circulation are the Prayer-book and
Bradshaw. I am not going to instruct any one in religion or trains,
so I may as well make up my mind to a more limited audience, while I
pipe my simple lay (rather squeakily and out of tune, perhaps), and may
think myself very lucky if that same kind, limited audience do not hiss
me down before I have got through half a dozen staves of the dull old
ditty.

Have you ever been to Wales? If you have ever visited the pretty,
dirty, green spot where Pat and his brogue, where potatoes and
absenteeism and head-centres flourish, _alias_ Ireland, you have
no doubt passed through a part of it, rushing by, most likely, in
the Irish mail; but in that case your eyes and nose and ears were
all so very full of dust and cinders--you were so fully employed in
blinking and cough