CHAPTER VII.
AN INTERRUPTED DAY-DREAM.
Felicita's study was so quiet a room, quite remote from the street, that it was almost a wonder the noise of the crowd had reached her.

But this morning there had been a pleasant tumult of excitement in her own brain, which had prevented her from falling into an absorbed reverie, such as she usually indulged in, and rendered her peculiarly susceptible to outward influences.

All her senses had been awake to-day.
On her desk lay the two volumes of a new book, handsomely got up, with pages yet uncut as it had come from the publishers.

A dozen times she had looked at the title-page, as if unable to convince herself of the reality, and read her own name--Felicita Riversdale Sefton.

It was the first time her name as an author had been published, though for the last three years she had from time to time written anonymously for magazines.
This was her own book; thought out, written, revised, and completed in her chosen solitude and secrecy.