Excerpt from Maid in Waiting He lay in a room with mullion windows, an ascetic room in a sixteenth century house, close to the Cathedral, whose scent of age was tempered but imperfectly by the September air coming in. Some zinnias in an old vase on the window sill made the only splash of colour, and it was noticed by the nurse that his eyes scarcely left it, except to close from time to time. About six O'clock they informed him that all the family of his long-dead elder brother had arrived. 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.