Excerpt from The Orchid Yet Lydia was far from a grave per son. She laughed readily and freely, but in a minor key, which was only in keep ing with her other attributes of fastid '1ousness'. Her mental acuteness and con versational poise were accounted for at Westfield - the town within the limits of which dwelt the colony of which she was a member - by the tradition that she had read everything, or, more accurately, that she had been permitted to read everything while still a school-girl. 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.