Amabel was born and raised in a large but poor household in the Channel Islands -- and her encountering Robert Gareth-Lawless of London seems a rare stroke of good fortune: for when are there ever enough eligible bachelors among these wave-washed villages? And she is to be carried off, to dine and dance with the well-to-do of that most brilliant of English cities! Amabel, who takes on the nickname of Feather, loves the life she finds there -- even when less pleasant aspects of reality begin intruding. She learns that the Gareth-Lawless mode of high living is based not so much on property or wealth, but upon debt and keeping ahead of the creditors . . . and then learns she is pregnant. Now Feather has come to the attention of the head of the House of Coombe -- a world-wise, witty man who shows great sensitivity in his own clothing, and a similarly great appreciation for what she has done for herself, in presenting herself to society. It is strange, to be receiving the attentions of so important a man. She wonders what this portends -- even as tragedy strikes her small household.

Author Biography

Frances Eliza Hodgson Burnett (1849 - 1924) was a British-American novelist and playwright. She is best known for the three children's novels Little Lord Fauntleroy (published in 1885-1886), A Little Princess (1905) and The Secret Garden (1911). She was born in Cheetham, Manchester, England. After her father died in 1852, the family fell on straitened circumstances and in 1865 emigrated to the United States, settling in Jefferson City, Tennessee. There Frances began writing to help earn money for the family, publishing stories in magazines from the age of 19. In 1870, her mother died and in 1872 Frances married Swan Burnett, who became a medical doctor. The Burnetts lived for two years in Paris, where their two sons were born, before returning to the United States to live in Washington, D.C. Burnett then began to write novels, the first of which (That Lass o' Lowrie's), was published to good reviews. Little Lord Fauntleroy was published in 1886 and made her a popular writer of children's fiction, although her romantic adult novels written in the 1890s were also popular. She wrote and helped to produce stage versions of Little Lord Fauntleroy and A Little Princess. Burnett enjoyed socializing and lived a lavish lifestyle. Beginning in the 1880s, she began to travel to England frequently and in the 1890s bought a home there, where she wrote The Secret Garden. Her oldest son, Lionel, died of tuberculosis in 1890, which caused a relapse of the depression she had struggled with for much of her life.[1] She divorced Swan Burnett in 1898, married Stephen Townsend in 1900, and divorced him in 1902. A few years later she settled in Nassau County, Long Island, where she died in 1924 and is buried in Roslyn Cemetery. In 1936 a memorial sculpture by Bessie Potter Vonnoh was erected in her honour in Central Park's Conservatory Garden. The statue depicts her two famous Secret Garden characters, Mary and Dickon.