Excerpt from The History of the Lady Betty Stair: A Novel One of them, the Abbe de Ronceray, was a brave, gentle old priest, who had once been a soldier and was a soldier still at heart; another was De Bour mont, a fellow with a fine figure, a plain face, but irresistible among the ladies; the third was Bastien, - hand some, but an arrant scoundrel and the fourth was Lady Betty Stair, one of the sweetest creatures that ever lived. Years before, in 1789, when Lady Betty was a mere chit of fifteen, she knew both De Bourmont and Bastien well by sight. They were Officers in the Queen's Musketeers, and Lady Betty's education had been finished at the palace of Versailles, under the care of Madame Mirabel, an ancient hanger on of the court, so they had a plenty of chances to meet. But she was so young and unformed that De Bourmont had never noticed the handsome slip of a girl; and Bastien had a most un pleasant recollection of her. In those days she had a brother, Angus Mac. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.