Excerpt from Friend Olivia The tall black chair in which he sat had been the baron's own for generations. One foot was on its foot stool, the other pressed down the soft white wool of the hearthrug his left hand lay upon the basket hilt of his long rapier, his right hand shaded his eyes, his fine head drooped slightly forward. But though silent and motion less, he was not alone. Oh the opposite side of the rug Lady Kelder was spinning flax. The little black wheel, richly carved and tipped with silver, was at her knee, and between it and the snowy flax her white hands made monotonously graceful movements. She wore a dress of black silk with a lawn kerchief pinned across her breast, and a black-silk hood lined with white fell slightly back ward from her white hair. A handsome woman, of an unchanging countenance, compact and conscious, who knew what she meant and what she wanted and in what she believed. 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.